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Gifts in Memory

Honor a loved one through a gift to Winterthur.

Your thoughtful donation in memory of a friend or family member helps Winterthur reach our vision to inspire exploration of American culture and landscapes through compelling stories and experiences. We will notify the honoree’s family of your generous contribution in their memory, without reference to the donation amount.

You can also sponsor a new bench or tree in the Winterthur Garden in memory of a loved one. Contact us at contributions@winterthur.org or 302.888.4673 to learn more about the garden tribute program. 
 
Gifts in memory will be recognized in the Honor Roll of Donors. 

“My mother passed [recently], and some of her most precious memories were those times she spent at Winterthur with her children and grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, we recommended friends make donations to Winterthur. Just wanted to thank you for creating a magical environment that brought such joy and memories to our family, and hopefully will continue to do so for years to come.” ~ Lisa 
 
Please fill out the Honor or Tribute Information section of this page. 

Corporate Partnerships

By sponsoring a program, event or exhibition, becoming a corporate member, or entertaining with us, your company provides critical support for our mission to inspire and educate through the collections, estate, and academic programs. 

Sponsorship Opportunities 

As one of Delaware’s largest cultural institutions and a premier destination for experiencing art and landscapes, Winterthur is a great partner. Corporate sponsorship helps you to engage our visitors, entertain employees, and spread brand recognition across the region. Each sponsorship package is customized to meet your company’s goals. 

Opportunities range from supporting museum, garden, or library projects to sponsoring events, programs, exhibitions, and more. Please contact the Philanthropy Office at 302.888.4673 or contributions@winterthur.org for more information about current opportunities. 

Winterthur Business Associates Membership 

Join the Winterthur Business Associates to enjoy exclusive benefits for your company, including: 

  • Access to Winterthur for hosting meetings, seminars, conferences, lectures, and special events. 
  • General admission passes to share with employees and clients. 
  • Discounts onsite. 
  • Invitations to Winterthur’s special events, including the Delaware Antiques Show and Point-to-Point steeplechase races. 
  • Recognition in Winterthur’s Honor Roll of Donors. 

We are happy to work with you to develop additional benefits that meet your goals, including free admission for employees, curator-led tours, volunteer opportunities, and more. For more information, please contact the Philanthropy Office at 302.888.4673 or contributions@winterthur.org. 

Entertaining at Winterthur 

Winterthur is truly a wonderful place to entertain. From a small meeting in the Hawkes Center to a large gala in the Galleries Reception Atrium, our wide range of venue options can meet any event needs. Our expert staff will work with you to customize the experience and make your event a success. 

Signature Winterthur events such as the annual Delaware Antiques Show and Point-to-Point steeplechase race provide a variety of opportunities for entertaining employees and clients. Please contact the Philanthropy Office for more information at 302.888.4673 or contributions@winterthur.org. 

Du Pont the Designer

One need only look at the Port Royal Parlor at Winterthur to see what made Henry Francis du Pont a great designer. 

There is the prominence of color in the rich yellow draperies, sofas, and chairs, a vivid counterpoint to the jewel tones of the rug on which the furniture rests. There is the symmetry of the sofas, facing each other before the fireplace, as well as the side tables flanking the mantel, the high chests in conversation from their respective sides of the room, the chairs next to the chests, and the desk-and-bookcase centered between doorways. Among all this order, note the flowers. Even that touch is as carefully selected, beautifully arranged, and precisely placed as every other element of the room. 

It is design of a type that is now so established, we barely give it a thought. But in H. F. du Pont’s time and social milieu, it was a new approach. He departed from what most designers of the day were doing and used American antiques as high style.

Understanding du Pont the designer begins with examining du Pont the collector, the focus of the exhibition Outside In: Nature-inspired Design at Winterthur. In his youth, du Pont collected things he found in nature, such as birds’ eggs and seashells. As an adult, his fascination evolved into a passion for historic American furniture and decorative arts—unlike most members of high society, who preferred to collect the arts and objects of Europe. His collection became a means to an end: the creation of beautiful spaces. 

Du Pont collected items that were the highest quality of craftsmanship. He did not feel obligated to fill the many rooms of his home with furniture from the same period, place, or style, as a true antiquarian would feel compelled to do. He wasn’t trying to exactly re-create a Philadelphia room in 1780, for example. Rather, he used his collection as an artistic medium. He often placed items from different periods among sympathetic backdrops, using them to create a particular space.

He also incorporated different colors through the year, changing window treatments and slipcovers to harmonize with the light of the day and the changing seasons, as seen in his beloved garden outside the windows. It was second-order thinking that ensured every room looked stunning at every time of the year. Du Pont was truly remarkable—shape, color, textures, light—he thought through all that and put it all together. 

He was highly influenced by friends and peers such as Electra Havemeyer Webb at Shelburne, in Vermont, and Henry Davis Sleeper, an interior decorator who turned his home into a showcase and helped du Pont design Chestertown House in Southampton, New York. Like his friend Dr. Albert Barnes, who assembled a world-class collection of Post-Impressionist, Expressionist, and folk art for his galleries in Merion, du Pont created settings that were not focused on a single object but on whole compositions. He also relied heavily on his friend Bertha Benkard, an authority on early 19th-century furniture who helped him select and buy pieces for his collection. He described her “faultless taste” as the reason he turned to her for advice on color and arrangement. 

Yet du Pont’s aesthetic also differed from many of his friends’ preferences. Though he valued their opinions and sought their approval, he trusted his own intuition. The result was twofold: the creation of beautiful rooms and the legitimization of American objects as worthy of the treatment and esteem given contemporaneous objects from England and France. The vision that began at Chestertown House was fully realized at Winterthur. 

H. F. du Pont was a trendsetter in his day. He influenced others to use American pieces in fashionable settings, blending traditional objects with a modern eye for color and display. He gave this design approach his stamp of approval, cementing it as being in good taste.

Bearing Witness

This new installation invites visitors, community members, artists, scholars, and advisors to join us in new conversations about America’s cultural heritage. Objects in these galleries document makers and consumers, bearing witness to people, encounters, and entanglements in American communities and illustrating a global story that crosses gender, racial, cultural, social, and geographic boundaries. As we consider Winterthur’s collection through new lenses, we travel beyond the borders of narratives previously told, exploring communities that have gone unacknowledged, and mapping new directions for inquiry and conversation.

Give Today

Make a secure gift online here.

Or send a gift in the form of a personal or business check, made out to Winterthur and mailed  

c/o Development Office 

Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library 

5105 Kennett Pike 

Winterthur, DE 19735. 

Stock, Donor Advised Funds, Mutual Funds & Wire Transfers 

If you intend to give stocks or mutual funds, or you would like to make a contribution through a wire transfer, please contact the Philanthropy Office at contributions@winterthur.org or 302.888.4673 for Winterthur’s account information. Please let us know before you initiate a gift so we can promptly thank you for your generous donation.   

Make a gift through your Retirement Account 

If you are 70 ½ or older, you can donate directly to Winterthur from your Individual Retirement Account (IRA) through a Qualified Charitable Distribution. This type of donation can help you meet the required minimum distributions from traditional IRAs and can come with some tax advantages. To make this type of contribution, contact your IRA custodian and ask to make a Qualified Charitable Distribution. You may need to provide the following information about Winterthur:  

Legal Name: The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc. 

Address: 5105 Kennett Pike, Winterthur, DE 19735 

Tax ID#: 51-0066038 

If you have questions or need additional information from Winterthur, please contact the Philanthropy Office at contributions@winterthur.org or 302.888.4673.  

Gifts of Objects  

Winterthur’s decorative and fine art holdings continue to grow through the donation of objects. Your gift can improve and evolve our museum rooms and galleries over time and can be used by the curatorial staff as teaching tools in the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture. Gifts are tax deductible at their appraised value. If you would like to donate an object to Winterthur, please contact the Museum Collections Division at 302.888.4775 or museumcollections@winterthur.org. 

The Winterthur Tax ID Number is 51-0066038. 

The Winterthur Library Revealed: Five Centuries of Design and Inspiration

Experience the treasures of Winterthur Library in this virtual exhibition based on the 2004 Galleries show.  Books, manuscripts, drawings, photographs, and printed ephemera, supplemented with museum objects, document the library’s evolution from a du Pont family collection into a world-renowned repository and its role in decorative arts scholarship.

View the online exhibition.

Upcycled!

Upcycled!, a multi-year project at Winterthur, launched in the fall of 2021 with a community-driven art project developed in partnership with Winterthur’s neighboring communities and institutional partners. The resulting project was installed at Winterthur and one other site within the Wilmington and/or greater New Castle County area.

Winterthur is embarking on this exciting project as we invite our community members, visitors, staff, artists, scholars and students to participate in reimagining our vibrant future as an active and engaged cultural heritage site within our region and in the broader world. Upcycling is traditionally defined as creating an object of greater value from a discarded object of lesser value. Winterthur will explore upcycling in a broader context and will include categories such as: assembled, transformed, recycled, altered, repaired, and preserved.

Housing & the Fellowship Experience

Winterthur’s semi-rural location on the former estate of Henry Francis du Pont offers researchers serene surroundings.

Two renovated estate residences—the Visiting Scholars Residence (VSR) and Foulsham House—offer fellows spacious accommodations.

Creating an Intellectually Safe and Supportive Environment

The Winterthur Research Fellowship Program is dedicated to creating a safe and socially-just environment for our fellows. This includes, but is not limited to: engaging in actions to support BIPOC scholars, creating a harassment-free environment, acknowledging and actively combatting systemic racism and inequality inherent in cultural heritage and academia, and fostering an environment that welcomes sustained and sustainable efforts to support robust scholarly and professional discourse. We welcome engagement with all topics, practiced with respect and care, in service of these goals.

Ethics Policy

Fellows, like our staff and volunteers, are expected to act with integrity and in accordance with rigorous ethical principles. Failure to comply with Winterthur’s code of ethics or research misconduct policy may result in termination of the fellowship and disqualification from future fellowship funding.

Housing

All in all, the fellowship was exactly what I was hoping for, and more. The possibility of on-site housing was excellent, the landscape around is beautiful, and it was a pleasure to walk to the museum and library in the mornings. I only wished I had more time…

Lars Preisser, artist, Maker-Creator Fellow, 2020-21

The Research Fellowship Program offers on-site housing for fellows on a space-available basis (current rate: $600/month or $60/night, utilities included). Rental payments are billed separately and not deducted from the fellowship stipend. Overnight guests can be accommodated by pre-arrangement and subject to a supplemental housing fee. Prior to arrival, fellows are required to sign a housing agreement. 

Fellows are welcome to inquire about on-site family accommodation and other short-term housing opportunities in the area. While we know that pets are family, too, we cannot accommodate pets in our on-site housing.

Two renovated estate residences—the Visiting Scholars Residence (VSR) or Foulsham House—offer fellows spacious accommodations and amenities, including:

  • 3-4 private, air-conditioned bedrooms with 1-2.5 shared baths
  • a large kitchen and dining space outfitted with utensils and supplies
  • a furnished common area
  • use of a washer and dryer
  • wireless internet
  • complimentary bicycles, a grill, and other amenities. 

Both buildings are within walking distance of the museum and library, but complimentary bikes are also available for this commute.

Please inquire to Chase Markee, Academic Affairs Administrator, (cmarkee@winterthur.org) with any questions about booking accommodation.

Getting Here & Getting Around

Winterthur is located about 25 miles from Philadelphia and its airport, and is accessible by Amtrak, regional rail, and local public transportation from Wilmington (about 7 miles away). Wilmington Train Station also houses four major rental car agencies. Uber, Lyft, and taxis operate in our area as well. A car is best for getting around outside of the property independently, but carpools and ride services can be arranged. Fellows receive a welcome packet that includes addresses and navigation to local amenities, like grocery stores and shopping centers. Numerous coffee shops and restaurants are located within a few miles of Winterthur’s property.

Research Fellowship Offices and Use of the Library

All research fellows receive dedicated office space for the duration of their residency. These offices are in the heart of Winterthur’s Academic Programs Department in the Louise DuPont Crowninshield (Research) Building just upstairs from the Winterthur Library.

Fellows are given badged status during their time at Winterthur and have access to their offices beyond business hours. Office amenities include a desk, wireless internet, free printing and scanning capabilities, private space for taking calls or meetings, and use of the furnished staff lounge and kitchen.

Fellowship privileges include:

  • Access to Winterthur Library’s circulating collections and comfortable research space
  • Borrowing privileges (for residencies longer than 2 weeks)
  • Interlibrary loan requests and downloading digital collection images (free)
  • Access to a photocopier and an overhead book scanner
  • Use of 3 computer stations
  • Use of in-house collection databases and numerous research databases available through the institution’s academic affiliation with the University of Delaware’s graduate programs, all free of charge.

Please review the Library’s current hours and procedures for making appointments to view rare books and other special collections materials.

Additional Amenities at Winterthur

Winterthur’s 1,000 acres of gardens and naturalistic landscape offer fellows daily opportunities to be in nature while they are in residence. With hundreds of miles of trails, fellows can enjoy walking, running, relaxation, and picnics in our green spaces from dawn to dusk.

Winterthur’s Pavilion Café in the Visitors Center offers lunch options and light fare on days when the museum is open to the public. Fellows receive a staff discount when presenting their badge. 

A post office operates Monday through Friday. Express packages and mail can be sent and received here.

Fellows are also afforded complementary admission to museum and garden tours and programming. Special arrangements may be made for fellows to attend Winterthur conferences and symposia at discounted rates. The Winterthur badge also provides some discounts and reciprocal admission at regional sites.

Apply now.