The Arts
Iris Cantor's commitment
to the arts has manifested itself in the numerous
Foundation projects she has led. From 1994
until 2000, the Cantor Foundation sponsored an
unprecedented series of eight sculpture exhibitions at
the White House. The exhibitions in the Jacqueline
Kennedy Garden focused on twentieth-century American
sculpture. During the summer of 1998, the Foundation
sponsored another momentous outdoor exhibition
in collaboration with New York's Public Art Fund.
“Rodin at Rockefeller Center” featured eight large Rodin
bronzes at the Channel Gardens at Rockefeller Center.
As many as twelve million people enjoyed the
exhibitions at the White House Garden and an additional
two million viewed the exhibition at Rockefeller Center.
Women's Healthcare— Los Angeles
Iris Cantor's dedication to women's health
began when her beloved sister was
diagnosed with breast cancer and passed
away from the deadly disease. This motivated Mrs. Cantor to fund
UCLA Medical Center’s Iris Cantor Center for Breast Imaging.
In July 1995, with Mrs. Cantor's continuing support,
UCLA opened the Iris Cantor-UCLA Women's Health
Center, which implemented her vision of research and education
integrated with primary care.
Mrs. Cantor has served on
the Board of Councilors of the UCLA Foundation. In
1993 she created the Iris Cantor Humanitarian Award which recognizes
individuals who have made important contributions to
women's health; Hillary Rodham Clinton was the first
recipient of the Award.
Women's Healthcare— New York
Continuing her commitment to
women's healthcare, on the East Coast Mrs. Cantor
created the Iris Cantor Women's Health Center as part of
the New York Weill Cornell Medical Center. The Center,
which celebrated its grand opening in April of 2002, is
one of the most comprehensive medical facilities for
women in the world. Mrs. Cantor's commitment has ensured
that this Center provides what she calls
"one-stop-shopping" for women's medical care, fitness
and nutrition. Her dream is to prevent women from being
treated like "second-class citizens" by the healthcare
industry.
Although
the Iris Cantor Women's Health Center is a recent undertaking,
her commitment to New York is long-standing.
She has served on the Board of Trustees of
the New York-Presbyterian Hospital and as vice chairman
of the Lying-In Hospital, where the Cantors provided
funds to create the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Ambulatory
Surgery Center (for outpatient care) and the Iris and B.
Gerald Cantor Laboratory for Immunological Research in
Diabetes. In 1996, Mrs. Cantor's donation to New York
Weill Cornell Medical Center’s Department of Obstetrics
and Gynecology provided it with eleven birthing
rooms, two operating rooms and a new waiting room.
Mrs. Cantor has been on the Board of Trustees of
the Strang Cancer Prevention Center. She
established the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor
Clinical Research Laboratory at the Rogosin Institute.
New York University
Also in New York, the
Cantors provided major support to establish the Iris and
B. Gerald Cantor Film Center in 1997 at New
York
University's Tisch School
of the Arts. This Center provides the students and
community with state-of-the-art lecture halls and screening facilities. In 2004 Mrs. Cantor
encouraged the Foundation to create an endowed scholarship
fund here, which has been named in
honor of her and Mr. Cantor. She currently is on
the Tisch School's Dean's Committee.
Award-Winning Film
One of Mrs. Cantor's most ambitious personal undertakings was to co-produce a 53-minute documentary about the first lost-wax bronze casting of Auguste Rodin's The Gates of Hell. The
casting was commissioned by Mr. Cantor in 1977. The
film, which dramatically recorded the painstaking
four-year casting process, was shot on location in
Brussels, Florence, Rome, and the Coubertin Foundry in
France. "Rodin: The Gates of
Hell"
premiered in 1981
at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.,
where the bronze was featured in the retrospective exhibition "Rodin Rediscovered.”
This film received many major awards, including the CINE Golden
Eagle, the Blue Ribbon Award at the American Film
Festival, the CHRIS Award and a Gold Award at the
CINDY competition. It continues to be an audience favorite whenever it
is shown.
Other Involvements
Mrs. Cantor has been
a member of the Blue Ribbon Committee and a
Grand
Patron of The Music Center in Los
Angeles. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Discovery Eye Foundation
in Los Angeles, where she established the Iris and
B. Gerald Cantor Fellowship for
Original Research. In December 2004 the Discovery Eye Foundation
opened the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation
Diabetic Eye Research Laboratory at the University of California,
Irvine. In 2007 Iris Cantor joined the board
of Exploring the Arts, Inc., a private
organization supporting a new high school for
the arts in New York City.
Awards
Because of her vision and her
generous patronage of the arts and medicine, Iris
Cantor has received scores of awards and honors from
civic and governmental agencies, museums, universities
and other organizations. These include:
- 2008: Iris Cantor is named a
"Woman of Achievement" by the Woman's Project, an
organization dedicated to producing and promoting
theater created by women, and providing a stage for
Women's perspectives on a wide variety
of political, social, religious, and cultural topics.
- 2007:
Honored by the Discovery Eye Foundation for her
philanthropy.
- 2003:
Trustee of the Year, New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
- 2003:
Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, College of the Holy
Cross.
- 2002:
ArtTable Inc., a national organization for outstanding women
in the visual arts, presented Mrs. Cantor with its Award
for Distinguished Service to the Visual Arts.
- 2001: The UCLA Medal, the
University's
highest honor, given only to those who have
made “truly extraordinary and distinguished contributions to society, their
professions, higher education and to
UCLA," was bestowed on Iris Cantor.
- 2000:
Chevalier in the French National Order of the Legion
of Honor, for her work in promoting Rodin and women's
health care.
- 1996:
Induction into the Sir Harold Acton Society of New
York University and recipient of commemorative medal
for generous patronage of the University's Tisch
School of the Arts.
-
1996: Winthrop Rockefeller
Award in Little Rock, Arkansas for contributions to
the arts.
- 1995: President and Mrs. Clinton
presented Mr. and Mrs. Cantor with National
Medal of Arts, in recognition of their outstanding
patronage. This medal is presented in
collaboration with the National Endowment for the Arts
and honors distinguished artists and patrons who
inspire others through their work.
-
1994: The Cantors receive the California Governor's
Award for patronage of the arts.
- 1994: Mrs. Cantor is named
a Cavaliere Ufficiale in the Order of Merit, one of
Italy's highest public-service honors.
- 1993:
The Cantors receive the Encore Award for arts patronage
from the Arts and Business Council.
- 1992: The Cantors
receive the Hugo N. Dixon Award for excellence in
the arts from Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis,
Tennessee.
- 1992: The Cantors receive the
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Award for their patronage
of the arts, from the Skowhegan School of
Painting and Sculpture.
-
1991: Mrs. Cantor is inducted into the
Order Francisco de Miranda by the President and
Interior Minister of Venezuela. The honor was in
recognition of her support for the exhibition "Rodin
and Balzac: The Story of a Sculpture," which appeared
in Caracas.
- 1991:
Honorary degree in Fine Arts from Pratt Institute,
Brooklyn.
- 1991: Mrs.
Cantor was appointed the Steering Committee of
National Actors Theatre, a classical repertory theater
founded by Tony Randall.
- 1989:
The Brooklyn Museum of Art honors the Cantors with the
Augustus Graham Medal for their exceptional support of
the Museum.
