Nancy M. McNeil

Born 1926, Nancy McNeil and her late husband, Robert, McNeil, Jr. are major benefactors of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A member of the Women’s Committee of the Philadelphia Museum, and ACC Trustee, McNeil co-founded of the prestigious Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, which since 1977 has raised millions of dollars for the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In 1978, as a member of the Executive Committee of Religion and Art of America, she chaired the exhibit and symposium Craft Art and Religion at the Vatican Museum. In 2006 the McNeil’s created the endowed position Nancy M. McNeil Associate Curator of American Modern and Contemporary Crafts and Decorative Arts at the Philadelphia Museum, now held by Elisabeth R. Agro. This incredible and generous gift permits the Museum to further enrich the field in perpetuity, through intensifying its collection, exhibition and interpretation of craft objects and education programing to the general public. This spring the ACC Board of Trustees voted to recognize Nancy M. McNeil’s leadership exceptional contribution to and support of the craft field with the Aileen Osborn Webb Award for Philanthropy.

Read more about Nancy in American Craft.