Established in 1967 by Ailsa Mellon Bruce in memory of her father
ANDREW W. MELLON, born in 1855, was a financier, diplomat, and industrialist. Mr. Mellon helped found the Union Trust Company of Pittsburgh, the Gulf Oil Corporation, and the Pittsburgh Coal Company. In 1921, he left the presidency of the Mellon National Bank to become U.S. secretary of the treasury, serving for ten years under Presidents Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover. He later served as ambassador to Great Britain during 1932-33. Upon his death in 1937, Mr. Mellon left his vast collection of art to create the National Gallery of Art and enough funds for the construction of the building on the Washington, D.C. mall. Four chairs at Hopkins are named for Andrew W. Mellon, two at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, one at the Peabody Conservatory, and one at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.
His daughter, AILSA MELLON BRUCE, a philanthropist and art collector, established the Avalon Foundation in 1940, through which she supported the National Gallery of Art and other organizations. Mrs. Bruce, who served as her father's hostess in Washington and also when he was ambassador to Great Britain, later amassed an excellent collection of small paintings by the French Impressionists, which she left to the National Gallery on her death in 1969. She was married to David K. E. Bruce, a distinguished diplomat who also served as president of the National Gallery.
DAVID BELL, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities who specializes in the history of France, has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He is a contributing editor of The New Republic and, in 2005, was a visiting professor at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Among his honors and awards is the Gershoy Prize of the American Historical Association, which was awarded in 2002 for his book The Cult of the Nation in France. Professor Bell has taught at Johns Hopkins since 1996, and in 2007 was named Dean of the Faculty in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.
ANDREW W. MELLON, born in 1855, was a financier, diplomat, and industrialist. Mr. Mellon helped found the Union Trust Company of Pittsburgh, the Gulf Oil Corporation, and the Pittsburgh Coal Company. In 1921, he left the presidency of the Mellon National Bank to become U.S. secretary of the treasury, serving for ten years under Presidents Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover. He later served as ambassador to Great Britain during 1932-33. Upon his death in 1937, Mr. Mellon left his vast collection of art to create the National Gallery of Art and enough funds for the construction of the building on the Washington, D.C. mall. Four chairs at Hopkins are named for Andrew W. Mellon, two at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, one at the Peabody Conservatory, and one at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. 
DAVID BELL, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities who specializes in the history of France, has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He is a contributing editor of The New Republic and, in 2005, was a visiting professor at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Among his honors and awards is the Gershoy Prize of the American Historical Association, which was awarded in 2002 for his book The Cult of the Nation in France. Professor Bell has taught at Johns Hopkins since 1996, and in 2007 was named Dean of the Faculty in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.