“His passion for the arts and philanthropy serve as an inspiration for our museum benefactors, and for the community.” As an alumnus of Florida International University (class of ’77),Scholl’s first experience ever inside a museum was at the original location on campus 40 years ago when he was a young student at FIU – the year the museum was founded.
Phillip & Patricia Frost, Dennis & Debra Scholl, Dr. Jordana Pomeroy, and Daniel Perron, the Museum’s Board Chair
“Since then, the Frost Art Museum FIU has served as a cultural beacon for four decades, bringing new cultural experiences to generations of art lovers, students, patrons and visitors from all over the world,” adds Pomeroy. The art museum’s patrons, Patricia & Phillip Frost, joined Dr. Pomeroy in honoring Dennis Scholl alongside Dr. Kenneth Furton (FIU’s Provost), and Daniel Perron (the museum’s Board Chair).
The Scholls invited guests on a personal tour of the exhibition
Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists from Aboriginal Australia drawn from their own collection, which will continue its national tour after headlining at the Frost Art Museum FIU.
The Grand Galleries of the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum FIU hosted the exhibition from the collection of Debra and Dennis Scholl — Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists from Aboriginal Australia
MORE ABOUT DENNIS SCHOLLAward-Winning Filmmaker and Champion of the Arts
Honoree Dennis Scholl spoke passionately at the event about how as a young student at Florida International University in 1977 (the same year the museum was founded), his life was transformed after feeling compelled to walk into the campus museum that day. Since then, Scholl and his wife Debra have become nationally renowned champions of the arts.
They are recognized for their support of art and artists, and are holders of the largest private collection of Aboriginal art in the United States.
Dennis Scholl recently stepped down from his leadership position at the $2.5 billion Knight Foundation, where he oversaw funding of close to $200 million to arts organizations across America. He created Random Acts of Culture, and with his team at the foundation developed and led the Knight Arts Challenge.
Watch the Emmy-winning video about the documentary Random Acts of Culture here
Scholl is a ten-time regional Emmy winner for his cultural documentaries, including films about Tracey Emin, Theaster Gates, Wynton Marsalis and Frank Gehry. He is a producer, writer, and director whose second feature documentary, Queen of Thursdays, co-written and produced with noted Cuban filmmaker Orlando Rojas, was named Best Documentary at the 2016 Miami International Film Festival. Scholl is also known for Deep City — The Birth of the Miami Sound (2014) and the animated short, The Sun as a Big Dark Animal, an official selection of the 2015 Sundance International Film Festival. Scholl’s newest film is calledSymphony in D and is currently on the film festival circuit, showing at various cities.
Watch the trailer for Symphony in D here:
Watch the trailer for Deep City — The Birth of the Miami Sound here:
Scholl has served on the boards and executive committees of Aspen Art Museum, MOCA Miami, the Pérez Art Museum Miami and the Linda Pace Foundation. He was named three times to the annual WESTAF list of the Most Powerful and Influential Leaders in the Nonprofit Arts, and along with his wife, Debra, recently received the National Service in the Arts Award from the Anderson Ranch Art Center.
The Scholls are highly regarded for their efforts to build the permanent collections of contemporary art museums and are founding chairs of the Guggenheim Photography Committee, the Tate American Acquisition Committee, and an acquisition committee for the new Pérez Art Museum Miami where they have donated 300 works from their personal collection.
The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University
Scholl is also co-founder of the award-winning wine projects Betts and Scholl and Mother Tongue Shiraz, and was a visiting scholar at MIT Media Lab and a Harvard University Advanced Leadership Fellow.
This year’s Art Transforms Benefactor Impact event at the Frost Art Museum FIU drew Miami’s leading arts patrons and cultural leaders, including: Joan Johnson, Jonathan and Karen Fryd, celebrity chef Michael Schwartz and his wife Tamara Repsold Schwartz, Lisa and Gary Payton, Amy and Richard Kohan, Fred Snitzer, Ed Christin, Lourdes Tudela, Karen Escalera, Ellen Salpeter, Lorie Mertes and Alex Gartenfeld.
Guests joined Debra and Dennis Scholl on exclusive tours of the museum’s collection vault. The event was sponsored by EWM Realty International, Bacardi and Rumbas Party Rental & Events. More photos from the event may be seen at this photo gallery link, and more images from the award ceremony continue below . . .
