‘She was simply amazing.’ Death of local icon Anne Marion mourned in Fort Worth, beyond
Anne Marion sent word in 1984 that she intended to fund, via the foundation she directed, the purchase of all of the tools that the Kimbell Art Museum would need to operate a top-rate conservation facility.
In New York, Claire Barry was wrapping up her work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and was to begin a new post as a conservator at the Fort Worth museum when she learned of Marion’s offer.
She scanned her Met studio, gathered a list of microscopes and solid oak easels that she would need in Fort Worth and faxed it off.
That the cost exceeded an initial budget would not be a problem. The Kimbell would have the equipment it needed, Marion decided.
“It was a transformational gift,” Barry, who remains the Kimbell’s director of conservation, said Thursday.
Marion, who died Tuesday at 81, was a major contributor to the Fort Worth art world who also directed her philanthropic efforts to art museums beyond the city.
Marion was the central benefactor of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Before opened in its sleek second location on Darnell Street in 2002, Marion, the project’s main benefactor, wanted to be sure that every detail was up to her standards. She was known among her colleagues for her tireless pursuit of perfection, according to a Star-Telegram profile from 2002.
She didn’t like one of the concrete walls in what was then a brand new museum, assessing it as distracting, so she decided it would need to be torn down and redone. Marion didn’t want the wall to take away from the artwork that would hang on it.
When the building was unveiled to the public in December 2002, it received plaudits as a visionary architectural feat, one of the great American modern museums of the 21st century.
Marion, the heiress to famed Texas ranching family the Burnetts, was the president of Burnett Ranches, LLC, which includes the Four Sixes Ranch in Guthrie; president of the Burnett Foundation and Burnett Companies; and chairman and founder of the Burnett Oil Co. Inc. Her business successes led in 1996 to her induction into the Texas Business Hall of Fame.
Marion was an an avid art collector, particularly of 20th century and African pieces, and supported artists and artistic expression. She was on the board of the Kimbell Art Museum beginning in the 1980s; co-founded the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe in the late 1990s with her husband, John Marion, who survives her; and was the director emeritus at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.
The Modern is considered one of Marion’s chief legacies.
“Anne Marion was one of the most generous, admirable and inspirational people I have ever known,” Museum Director Marla Price wrote in a statement Thursday. “Together with Mr. and Mrs. Perry Bass, they provided the majority of funds for the project and guaranteed that the resulting building would be one of the finest in the world.
“Her great leadership and generosity to the museum has continued until the present, and her loss is heartbreaking for everyone involved with the Modern.”
Price, who had a close personal relationship with Marion, was in Europe on Thursday and was unable to speak with the Star-Telegram by phone.
Eric Lee, the director of the Kimbell Art Museum, wrote in a statement that though he “cannot imagine the city without her,” Marion’s “presence will always be felt” due to her enormous impact.
Her kindness and generosity “knew no bounds,” he wrote.
Marion, who lived in Westover Hills, died Tuesday in California. The cause was lung cancer, according to the Burnett Foundation.
Cody Hartley, the director of Santa Fe’s Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, wrote in a statement that the museum “exists today because of Anne Marion’s vision to create a single-artist museum devoted to Georgia O’Keeffe’s work and legacy.”
“With Mrs. Marion’s passing, we have lost an incredible woman whose spirit inspired and animated all we do at the O’Keeffe,” Hartley said in the statement. “Our collective sorrow is matched only by our admiration and gratitude for her leadership.”
Marion served as a director of Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth, and the Marion Emergency Care Center was named for her, according to an obituary prepared by the Burnett Foundation. She also was a trustee at Texas Christian University and contributed to its new medical school.
Marion “comes from a family that has had a 100-year history of helping all things Texas Christian University,” Chancellor Victor Boschini wrote in a statement. “Personally, Megan and I will forever be indebted to her for her friendship, her counsel and her wry sense of humor, too.”
Marion often emphasized the importance of her childhood.
“The most important thing that ever happened to me was growing up on that ranch,” she once said, according to her biography on the Four Sixes Ranch website. “It kept my feet on the ground more than anything else.”
She was born in 1938 in Fort Worth to James Goodwin Hall and Anne Burnett Tandy, according to the biography. Tandy, who established the $200 million Burnett Foundation in 1978, was the daughter of Tom Burnett, one of three children of the legendary rancher, landowner and oilman Samuel “Burk” Burnett.
She inherited her parents’ love of the land, the oil and the horses, according to her obituary. Life on the ranch instilled in her a sense of discipline and hard work.
As she grew up spending her summers on the ranch, she took on more responsibilities like managing the cowboys. The ranch “was among the first in the industry to provide medical benefits and retirement plans to its staff,” according to the obituary.
And when she became the president of the Burnett Foundation, she made a point of dispersing their substantial funds to organizations in need, giving out more than $600 million over the course of 40 years in the form of charitable grants to support art, community development, health services and education.
Her support of Fort Worth institutions earned her the distinction of being the city’s Outstanding Citizen of 1992, according to the obituary.
She also supported organizations outside her home city, from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe to Eisenhower Health in Rancho Mirage, California.
G. Aubrey Serfling, president and CEO of Eisenhower Health, wrote in a statement in the obituary that “Anne taught us about things that really matter ... like character and courage.”
“I’m not sure I have ever met someone quite like her, who made such a large impact on all of us, including our doctors, but did so in her own independent way,” Serfling wrote. “Anne helped us with our largest projects in history but would never let us put her name on anything. She was simply amazing.”
In Fort Worth, she was known as a beloved hometown figure who made an impact beyond the city while not forgetting where she came from.
Visitation is to be Wednesday from 4 to 6 p.m. at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church. A memorial service is scheduled for Thursday at 3 p.m. at University Christian Church.
