Susan Soros

Susan Soros is the wife of the financier George Soros.

"In 1991, Mrs. Soros was turned down for the job of director of graduate education at the Cooper-Hewitt/Parsons School of Design. So with $20 million of her husband's money, she started her own school, at 18 West 86th Street.

"The New York Observer called the move "a flourish of determination and resentment." Now, four years later, she has put the Bard Center on the map, graduating her first class of 20 students with master's degrees in decorative arts, and mounting a series of well-reviewed exhibitions. John Russell, writing in The New York Times, called Bard's recent show, "A. W. N. Pugin: Master of Gothic Revival, "a cause for jubilation."

"With the creation of the Bard Center, Mrs. Soros has helped establish the decorative arts, traditionally underrecognized in the art world, as a legitimate subject for intellectual inquiry."


 * Former Trustee, Bard College