Patricia Phelps de Cisneros

Patricia "Patty" Phelps de Cisneros is a Venezuelan-born Dominican arts and education advocate. Since the 1970s Cisneros has led initiatives to expand access to educational and cultural resources, including large scale literacy and teacher training programs across the region. She is also recognized for her work as an art collector, with a particular focus on Latin American modernist and contemporary art from Brazil, Venezuela, and the Río de la Plata region of Argentina and Uruguay. Along with her late husband, Gustavo A. Cisneros, she founded the New York City and Caracas-based Fundación Cisneros, which launched several educational and cultural programs. In the 1990s the Fundación's primary art-related program became the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros.

Cisneros received a BA in Philosophy from Wheaton College, Massachusetts in 1969, where she studied the educational philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead.

In 2003, Wheaton College awarded her an honorary degree. they created the Asociación Cultural para el Desarrollo (ACUDE) in Venezuela, whose literacy program served over 300,000 students across the country. The program utilized a comprehensive multimedia pedagogy called Sono-Estudio Curso to shift the focus of writing and literacy away from traditional educational settings and into contexts that address everyday needs, from social interaction to health, hygiene and job performance. The Fundación Cisneros also created Cl@se, an educational television channel that reached over two million homes from Argentina to Mexico; AME, an international professional development program for teachers conducted through distance-learning; and Piensa en Arte, a methodological model for teaching critical thinking skills.

From 2014 to 2017, the Fundación Cisneros provided professional development in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic with the online platform called Tu Clase, tu país.

Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros

In the 1970s, during her travels across Latin America with her husband, Cisneros spent her time visiting artists in their studios and seeing art in local galleries and museums, and began actively purchasing and collecting artwork. Primarily collecting indigenous work during frequent expeditions through Venezuela, especially around the Orinoco in the Amazon River Basin. Cisneros has been lending her collections to international exhibitions and institutions since 1999.

Cisneros credits her understanding of the importance of stewardship as a collector to her great-grandfather, William H Phelps, who meticulously cataloged his ornithological collection. She has said that her aesthetic developed as a result of having grown up in the modernist society of Caracas in the 1950s and 1960s.

Cisneros has had a long-term relationship with the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The 2016 donation of 102 modern and contemporary Latin American artworks from the 1940s to 1990s to the Museum of Modern Art, which establishes the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Research Institute for the Study of Art from Latin America at MoMA, join the previous donation by Colección Cisneros of over 40 other previously donated works.

In January 2018, it was announced that more than 200 artworks, many from contemporary artists, would be donated by the collection to six institutions with whom Cisneros has had long-term relationships: the Museum of Modern Art; the Bronx Museum of the Arts; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, Spain; the Museo de Arte Moderno in Buenos Aires, Argentina; the Museo de Arte de Lima in Lima, Peru; and the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas, Austin in Austin, Texas. The gifts include works by Amalia Pica, Jac Leirner, Luis Camnitzer, and Regina José Galindo.

Personal life She married Gustavo Cisneros in 1970 in St Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. They have three children: Guillermo Cisneros, Carolina Cisneros de Rodríguez, and Adriana Cisneros, who is CEO and Vice Chairman of Grupo Cisneros. 2011–present: Museum Berggruen (Berlin, Germany). International Council 2015–present: The Feuerle Collection (Berlin, Germany). Founding member, International Ambassadors 2015–present: Círculo Internacional de la Escuela de Música Reina Sofía, Museo Reina Sofía, (Madrid, Spain). International Patron 2017–present: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, Massachusetts). Member, Denman Waldo Ross Society at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 2020–present: American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Cambridge, Massachusetts). Member; 2020: Council; 2021 1985–2017: Chairman's International Council 1987-1990: Sinfonietta Caracas (Caracas, Venezuela). Advisory Board 1991: Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía, Museo Reina Sofía. Founding Patron 1992-1996: Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, New York). Chairman's Council 1994-2011: Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts). 1994: Founding board member; 1998-2011: Advisory Committee, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies 1997-2000: Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, University of Texas at Austin (Austin, Texas). Latin American Advisory Group 1997-2003: Programa Andes Tropicales (Mérida, Venezuela). Founding member, Board of Directors 1998-2012: Casita Maria (New York, New York). 1998-2008: Board member; 2008-2012: Chairman's Council 2001–2015: Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts). Committee to Visit the Harvard University Art Museums 2007–2017: Patronato Internacional del Museo del Prado, Museo del Prado (Madrid, Spain). Founding International Trustee 2009-2017: International Committee of International Council of Museums (ICOM) for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM). Founding Member 2011-2014: American Friends of the Fondation Beyeler, Beyeler Foundation (Basel, Switzerland). Member 2011-2014: Association Centre Pompidou América Latina, Centre Georges Pompidou (París, France). Founding Member 2012–2020: Fundación Museo Reina Sofía, Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid, Spain). 2012–2020: Founding Patron; 2015–2020: Nominating and Governance Committee 2012–2024: Leadership Council of Independent Curators International (ICI) (New York, New York) 2016–2018: Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo Art Biennial (São Paulo, Brasil). Founding International Advisory Board member

Honors and awards 1986: Order of Andrés Bello (Caracas, Venezuela) – Granted by Venezuelan government in recognition of contribution to the cultural development of the country (en reconocimiento a su contribución al desarollo cultural de país), Band of Honor, first class 1986: Order of Good Citizen (Caracas, Venezuela) − Granted by City Council of Caracas for community leadership 1991: Order of Francisco de Miranda (Caracas, Venezuela) – Granted by Venezuelan government to citizens who have exemplified outstanding merits (logros excepcionales como ciudadano) 1999: Order of Simón Bolívar, Venezuela 2000: Leone d’Oro di San Marco, awarded to the Colección Orinoco program area of the Fundación Cisneros 2002: Cross of Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur – Granted by Republic of France 2003: Wheaton College (Norton, Massachusetts), Honorary degrees in Fine Arts 2005: Recipient, medals of Honor – Granted by Ministry of Culture, Colombia for work in promoting education and culture in Latin America (2 medals: Senado de la República, Orden del Congreso de Colombia en el grado de Cemendados; and Camara de la Democracia Simón Bolivar en el grado cruz de comendador) 2008: Americas Society (New York, New York), Americas Society's Gold Medal 2008: Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (New York, New York), The Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Award for Outstanding Patronage of the Arts 2010: Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture (New York, New York), The Iris Foundation Award 2013: ArtTable (New York, New York), Distinguished Service in the Arts award 2013: The Gran Cruz de la Orden Civil de Alfonso X el Sabio – Granted by Monarchy of Spain (Spain) 2015: Medalla de Oro al Mérito en las Bellas Artes – Granted by Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte de España (Spain) 2015: Graduate Center of the City University of New York (New York, New York), Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters Degree 2017: Premio Iberoamericano de Mecenazgo (Madrid, Spain) 2017: Independent Curators International, Leo Award 2018: The Olana Partnership (New York), The Frederic Church Award 2019: Revista ARS (Madrid, Spain), Premio Arte y Empresa, awarded for Best Donation. 2023: International Women's Council, Pérez Art Museum Miami (Florida), 2023 IWC Honoree. 2024: Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía (Madrid, Spain), Commemorative plaque in honor of her numerous contributions to the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía, its Sinfonietta, and the Fundación Mozarteum Venezuela. 2025: Fundación ARCO, (Madrid, Spain), Premio "A" Honorífico.

Works and publications