Couple Makes Bequest of 50+ Artworks, Funds to Support Driskell Center

A D.C.-area couple who have long supported the University of Maryland’s David C. Driskell Center have bequeathed their entire estate to it, including more than 50 works of art. 

The gift from Juanita and Neil Hartbarger will also establish funds to support conservation, new acquisitions and staff expertise at the center, named for the late artist, scholar and distinguished university professor emeritus. This year, it celebrates its 25th anniversary of championing the work of Black artists. 

Named in honor of David and Thelma Driskell, the gift supports Forward: The University of Maryland Campaign for the Fearless, a $2.5 billion fundraising initiative that aims to expand access to UMD’s world-class education, accelerate groundbreaking research and unite a global community to Do Good.

“If we are going to have any sort of legacy, we knew it had to be in support of something that’s had a significant impact on our lives,” Juanita said. “There’s simply no place like the Driskell Center.”

For the center’s 2019 exhibition “Uncommon Collections,” the couple loaned four works spanning decades of African American artistic practice, and Neil joined a panel discussion with fellow collectors and longtime supporters of the center.

Then, for the 2022 “Telling Our Story” exhibition, the pair selected works from the Driskell Center’s permanent collection and wrote personal letters to the artists behind them, embracing an invitation to engage with the lives, histories and experiences the works represent.

The Hartbargers, Neil said, have come to appreciate what happens “under the hood”: conservation, preservation, research and collections care. Jordana Moore Saggese, director of the Driskell Center, called that the “unseen work” that makes the center’s public-facing programs possible.

“This gift strengthens the foundation on which everything else at the Driskell Center rests,” she said. “Without that infrastructure, the legacies we steward simply can't endure. The Hartbargers’ commitment to that quieter, essential work reflects a real grasp of how a center like ours sustains itself.”