After 11 years at the helm of the Ford Foundation, Darren Walker has been named president of the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, DC, per an announcement from the institution on Tuesday, October 14. Walker, who has been a trustee at the NGA since 2019, is succeeding Mitchell P. Rales effective immediately. This summer, Walker announced his planned departure from the Ford Foundation by the end of 2025.
Early into his tenure, Walker pivoted the Ford Foundation’s grant administration to address what he and his team identified as the five major factors contributing to global inequalities. He also recalibrated the organization’s giving model to help nonprofits succeed through subsidizing operational costs rather than simply awarding project-based grants. Under Walker’s leadership, the Ford Foundation has funded the arts and culture sector by allotting program support for multiple high-profile exhibitions and developing and funding initiatives to elevate minority leaders and perspectives.
“A society can’t be a more just society, a more fair society, without it being a more empathetic society, and the arts help build empathy,” Walker told Hyperallergic Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian during a 2017 podcast interview.
Despite the Ford Foundation’s partnered initiation of the Art for Justice Fund (2017–2023) with American philanthropist Agnes Gund in support of artists and activists working to end mass incarceration, Walker’s support was called into question in 2019 after he outlined in a blog post that “reasonable, workable solutions” for the shutdown of Rikers Island could only be facilitated through the construction of new jails across New York City. Walker’s assertion was met by an open letter co-signed by over 250 Ford Fellows calling on him, and the foundation by extension, to retract the statement and pledge that the organization would not fund the construction of the new jails.
In response to the protest that followed the letter, Walker denied that the Foundation was funding any of the new jail developments in an interview with Hyperallergic, and explained that the goal is “to have fewer total beds in New York City and to address the issue of inhumane incarceration,” also noting that he is acutely familiar with the prison industrial complex on a personal level and not just a philanthropic one.
With regard to his tenure as a trustee for the NGA, Walker has been credited with developing a major art acquisition fund through the Ford Foundation enabling the DC-based institution to diversify its collections. The fund supported NGA’s 2022 exhibition Afro-Atlantic Histories as well as the acquisition of the Ross J. Kelbaugh collection of 19th- and early 20th-century American photographs the following year.
“I look forward to working closely with Darren, who brings a strong vision and knowledge into the role at a vital and exciting time in the National Gallery’s trajectory,” said NGA Director Kaywin Feldman in a public statement concerning Walker’s new appointment.