Chipstone Foundation

Chipstone Foundation

Created in 1960 in Fox Point, Wisconsin, the Chipstone Foundation draws its endowment from the estate of Stanley and Polly Stone, who built a collection concentrated in early American furniture, British pottery, and American historical prints and maps. The foundation is governed by a board that includes Vice Chairman Ted D. Kellner, founder of Fiduciary Management Inc. The foundation's investment portfolio is spread across hedge funds, private equity, and real estate, with a geographic focus on North America. Capital is deployed through buyout, distressed debt, venture capital (from seed to late stage), mezzanine, and special-situations structures. While specific portfolio holdings are not publicly disclosed, the foundation's long-standing operational partnerships provide evidence of its active posture: since 1999 it has maintained dedicated galleries for its collection at the Milwaukee Art Museum, and it funds the Stanley and Polly Stone Professor of American Decorative Arts at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Beyond its Milwaukee base, Chipstone collaborates on research and exhibitions with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and on international decorative arts projects and artist residencies with London's Victoria & Albert Museum. The foundation's physical footprint includes the original Stone mansion in Fox Point and an office in Milwaukee's War Memorial Building. Executive Director Jonathan Prown, formerly affiliated with Colonial Williamsburg, guides the foundation's scholarly and curatorial direction. The foundation merges a family office's capital structure with the mission of an operating museum, creating a hybrid where an investment portfolio directly fuels object-based teaching and public gallery installations — a model distinct from most decorative arts trusts or university collections.