As the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Walter H. Everett, we have been honored to share his work and protect the handful of illustrations remaining within our family. The reception by fans of Walter’s worldwide to our social media pages has been nothing short of astounding to us and we are so glad to know his legacy continues.

Today, we are excited to announce both the official formation of the Walter H Everett Foundation as well as the gift of The Mark Everett Family Collection to the Foundation. This collection includes all 65 original works and early edition prints previously owned by Walter H Everett’s grandson and his wife, Mark and Gloria Everett. Through their generosity and foresight, this new institution and the founding gift ensure that Walter's legacy in illustration and American art will be preserved and celebrated for generations to come.

The mission of the Walter H Everett Foundation is to preserve, enhance, and promote the collection of works by and artistic practices of Walter H Everett for the benefit of American art history. As a 501c3 private operating foundation, we are governed by an independent board of directors and able to accept donations of original works bequests, and operate programs to make these works available to the public. This means that collectors and Walter’s fans can make tax-deductible contributions of artwork as well as money and other gifts to support our mission.

We also have a shiny new logo to unveil! The logo was inspired by Walter’s iconic “E” monograms that he used throughout his early career. It blends some of the more iconic curved elements of the 1910 version with the tapered serif bars of his later harder edged design. Thank you to Ken Dille, great-grandson of Walter H Everett and designer with General Design Studio, for collaborating with us on the design.

As a family, we talked a lot about the highest purpose for art and stories in our care. We feel a big advantage to having all the works stay together was being able to see his process in crafting the works and his evolution as an artist over his career. So it was critical to us to make sure that we didn’t see this as personal treasure but we see ourselves as stewards of a great gift, especially because of the interest we have received by artists worldwide and because the fires taught us how delicate this collection is.

One option was to donate the works to an institution that already exists, for example, a museum. Through talking with established institutions, we quickly came to realize that the reality is that although we could be confident in their care, Walter's work would probably be fated for the archives. There simply isn’t enough known or a relevant enough case for his work in the history of illustration to allow for its permanent display and most museums don't have the resources or bandwidth to do the curatorial footwork to research a relatively obscure artist, no matter how masterful.

So, with some time on our hands during the pandemic and the generosity of our founders, we thought “This is a great ‘plan b’” and decided to see if we couldn't do some of the leg work on our own – that's where the idea of a private foundation came up.

So far we have used our limited resources to commission high-quality scans of the entire Mark Everett Family Collection as well as several loaned to us by other descendants, we have professionally restored one especially delicate work that was gifted back to the collection, we have moved all the works to a top secure climate controlled facility, and we have been maintaining our Instagram and Facebook accounts to share these illustrations with the public.

As for what’s next… We hope to continue finding new ways to create meaningful opportunities and connections with Walter’s audience through virtual and live seminars, educational videos, intimate showings, partnerships and exhibitions, and high-quality reproductions and products for sale. We can’t wait to show you what we have in store!

And a sincere thank you to everyone who has been a part of our growing community - you are why we do what we do.

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