New arts education projects include opening of Clore Learning Spaces at Natural History Museum, Kensington Palace and Paisley Museum and five more announced.
Dame Vivien Duffield has made a major gift of £30m to the Clore Duffield Foundation to celebrate its 60th Anniversary.
To mark the 60th Anniversary, the Foundation is supporting a number of cultural education projects across the UK. The projects include new Clore Learning Centres, a cultural education partnership with Ark Schools, Teacher Fellowships, a pilot project for school trips in Scotland and a major grant for the National Gallery’s Bicentenary.
Dame Vivien Duffield DBE, Chair of the Clore Duffield Foundation, said: “To celebrate our 60th anniversary, we are making a major new investment in cultural learning projects across the UK. Right from my early philanthropic days creating Eureka! The National Children’s Museum in Halifax in the 1980s – and before – I have always had a commitment to supporting children’s engagement with the arts and heritage. It’s what I was given as a child in France, and it’s what all children and young people should have access to. I believe passionately that children and young people deserve the very best opportunities to benefit from the transforming power of our world class cultural organisations. I am delighted that we have been able to support such outstanding projects created in some of the best museums, galleries, theatres, gardens and historic sites across the country – even in royal palaces. Now more than ever, I believe that culture should be at the heart of our children’s learning.”
Clore Garden at Tate Britain
The celebrated landscape designer Tom Stuart-Smith Studio, in collaboration with architects Feilden Fowles, will create a new Clore Garden at Tate Britain. The project, realised in partnership with the Royal Horticultural Society, will create a beautiful new green space on Millbank which will be open to all. The Foundation’s long relationship with Tate Britain goes back several decades to the opening of the Clore Gallery in 1987 created in memory of Sir Charles Clore.
Clore Learning Spaces
Since 2000, the Clore Duffield Foundation has funded more than 70 Clore Learning Spaces in national museums, performing arts centres and heritage sites across the UK. A number of new Clore funded Learning Spaces will open during the anniversary year including Kensington Palace; Natural History Museum; Paisley Museum; Theatr Clwyd in Wales and Garsington Opera. New Clore Learning Spaces have been announced at The Courtauld, the V&A Storehouse, Trent Park and at the Old Vic with further announcements expected later in the year. Clore Learning Spaces have also been refurbished at Kettle’s Yard, the National Galleries of Scotland, the National Theatre and the Glasshouse International Centre for Music.
Ark Partnership
The Clore Duffield Foundation is supporting a pilot project in four Hastings schools, developing a new approach to arts education. Building on the foundations laid in the pilot year, the project seeks to engage every school in the Ark network by July 2027, ensuring that cultural learning and opportunities form a core entitlement, regardless of where they are in the country and their home circumstances.
School Trips
The Foundation is piloting an arts and school trips programme working with St Columbkille’s Primary School in Glasgow, in partnership with the Scottish Royal Conservatoire, which will be rolled out more widely later this year.
Teacher Fellowships
The Foundation is supporting Art Fund to develop a Teacher Fellowship programme, supporting teacher placements in Clore Learning Spaces in museums and galleries, building relationships with local schools.
Performing Arts National Saturday Club
The Clore Duffield Foundation has supported the National Saturday Club to create 10 new Performance & Theatre Saturday Clubs across England, free for 13–16-year-olds. With a particular focus on engaging young people from underrepresented communities, the aim is to create opportunities for young people to create and engage with the performing arts within universities, further education colleges, theatres and cultural organisations nationally.
The Clore Duffield Foundation has supported over 750 UK charities since it was formed in 2000, awarding grants of over £110 million to enhance the arts, Jewish life, education, health and welfare. Between 1980 and 2000 the Clore Foundation and the Vivien Duffield Foundation awarded over £51 million and £15 million respectively. Major beneficiaries include Tate, the Royal Opera House, the Southbank Centre, Oxford University and the Royal College of Art, who have all been supported by the Foundation to carry out major capital projects. The Foundation has also created a number of transformative programmes and institutions, including JW3, Eureka! and the Clore Leadership Programmes.
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Notes to Editors:
The Clore Duffield Foundation
The Clore Duffield Foundation was established by Sir Charles Clore in 1964. Now chaired by Sir Charles Clore’s daughter, Dame Vivien Duffield, the Foundation supports UK charities working in the arts, education, social welfare and health. The Foundation’s work includes: developing programmes and partnerships to create opportunities for people through art, culture and heritage in the UK; supporting artistic talent wherever it exists and ensuring that careers in the cultural sector should be open to all; supporting new and existing Clore Learning Spaces to ensure children and young people, in particular, have the chance to benefit from art, culture and heritage and the inspiration, knowledge, joy and wellbeing they bring; and ensuring the important organisations created by the Foundation continue to be strong, impactful and resilient, including JW3, the Clore Cultural Leadership Programme and Eureka!
Dame Vivien Duffield DBE, Chairman
Dame Vivien Duffield is the Chairman of the Clore Duffield Foundation. She serves on the boards of a number of other UK charities, including Balletboyz, the Imperial War Museum Foundation, the Grange Park Opera appeal, Race Against Dementia and Clore Leadership. She is the founder and Life President of JW3, London’s Jewish Community Centre, which opened in 2013. Dame Vivien is Chairman of the Clore Foundation in Israel and a life-long member of the Weizmann Institute of Science Executive Board. Dame Vivien was a member of the Board of the Royal Opera House from 1990 to 2001 and 2014 to 2022 and remains Chairman of the Royal Opera House Endowment Fund. She was a member of the Board of Governors for the Southbank Centre board from 2002 to 2016 and from 2007 to 2010 she was Chairman of the Campaign for Oxford University.
Dame Vivien's charitable work has been formally acknowledged by many institutions, both in the UK and in Israel. She was awarded the CBE in 1989, the DBE in 2000, and in 2008 HRH The Prince of Wales presented Dame Vivien with one of the first Medals for Arts Philanthropy. She attended Oxford University from 1963-1966 and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Music, the Royal Academy of Music and of the Royal College of Art. She has honorary degrees from the University of Buckingham, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Weizman Institute of Science in Israel and Imperial College, London.