A planning grant for the Center was provided by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Major funding was provided by Celeste Bartos, Sony Corporation of America, the National Endowment for the Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman, the Hartley Ramsay Estate, the Lillian Gish Trust, Time Warner Inc., David Rockefeller, Agnes Gund, George Gund III, Mercedes and Sid R. Bass, Jerry I. Speyer, Caral and M. Joseph Lebworth, and Twentieth Century­Fox. All members of the Museum's Board of Trustees contributed to the project.