Marion Boulton Stroud

Personal life Marion Boulton Stroud was born on March 22, 1939, the only child of Dr. Morris Wistar Stroud 3d (1913–1990), a pioneer in geriatric medicine, and his first wife, Marion Sims Rosengarten (1913–1988). Boulton Stroud married Clinton Darlington Swingle (1928–2013) on February 20, 1980, in Nacogdoches County, Texas.

Career Boulton Stroud graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a master's degree in art history. After graduating, she took her first job at the Philadelphia Museum of Art as director of art sales and rentals. She roomed with Anne d'Harnoncourt, the institution's future director. Her goal was "to explore, to take liberties, to be a studio and laboratory of new design, unhampered by rules and precedents". Artists were invited to attend "without any preconceived notions of what they had to do".

Over time, the length of residencies was extended from two weeks to two years. Those invited included architects, sculptors, painters, and craftspeople. Hundreds of artists have done residencies, Italo Scanga, Cai Guo-Qiang, Red Grooms, Louise Bourgeois, Donald Lipski, Claes Oldenburg, Cai Guo-Qiang: Fallen Blossoms (2010) won the award for Best Project in a Public Space from the International Association of Art Critics.

Cai Guo-Qiang's two-venue exhibition at the Fabric Workshop and Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art commemorated the friendship between Boulton Stroud and Anne d'Harnoncourt.

"She was of enormous importance for us in contemporary art... She was a donor of many fine works and, from time to time, of funds to acquire things we did not have the resources to acquire ourselves. Over the last 20 to 30 years, she had a really significant impact." Timothy Rub, director, Philadelphia Museum of Art She was declared one of the "Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania" by Governor Ed Rendell in 2006, and received Maine's Skowhegan Governor's Award, given for "outstanding service to art and artists".

Stroud was also a prolific competitor in field trials for dogs. Her black lab 'Robber's Stray Bullet' placed first in the U.S. National Open Retriever Championship in 2014.

Death Boulton Stroud died on August 22, 2015, in Northeast Harbor, Maine. In 2016, a substantial part of Boulton Stroud's art collection (including four pieces by Georgia O'Keeffe) was offered for sale with proceeds going to the Marion Boulton "Kippy" Stroud Foundation, for the ongoing support of The Fabric Workshop and Museum.