Anne Burnett Windfohr Marion: Philanthropist, Rancher, and Art Collector (1938–2020)

Anne Burnett Windfohr Marion, rancher, businesswoman, philanthropist, and art collector, was born on November 10, 1938, in Fort Worth, to parents Anne Valliant (Burnett) Hall (later Anne Burnett Tandy) and James Goodwin Hall. “Little Anne,” as she was known in her early years, grew up spending her summers at the Four Sixes Ranch owned by her mother. The summers on the ranch were formative to her character. Her parents divorced, and upon her mother’s marriage to Robert Windfohr, she adopted his last name, becoming Anne Burnett Windfohr. She attended the Hockaday School in Dallas and other elite schools in the East in her youth. She pursued higher education at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Geneva in Switzerland, where she studied art history. Anne Burnett Windfohr was married four times. In 1961 she married William Wade Meeker, with whom she had a daughter, Anne “Windi” Windfohr Meeker (later Windi Phillips Grimes). After marriages to Benjamin Franklin Phillips (1969–80) and James Rowland Sowell (1982–87), Anne married John L. Marion, chair and chief auctioneer for Sotheby’s and a fellow philanthropist, on March 26, 1988. They remained together until her passing in 2020. Anne Marion lived in the Westover Hills neighborhood in Fort Worth in the modernist home designed by I. M. Pei for her mother. She was a lifelong member of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church of Fort Worth.

Anne was the intended inheritor of the bulk of Samuel Burk Burnett’s estate, though she was not yet born when he willed the trusteeship to her mother. After Tandy’s death in 1980, Anne took over a multi-billion-dollar empire that included the Burnett Ranches and what became the foundation of the Burnett Oil Company. She was recognized as an astute businesswoman. Under Anne Marion’s leadership, the Burnett Ranches were among the first in the industry to provide their staff with medical insurance and retirement plans and became known for constantly updating their practices in keeping with the latest scientific and technological advances. During her career, she was a director of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association and the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo (see SOUTHWESTERN EXPOSITION AND LIVESTOCK SHOW). Like her mother, Marion was an active quarter horse breeder; her keen eye led to the purchase of award-winning horses Dash for Cash, Special Effort, and Streakin Six. Under her direction, the Burnett Ranches continued their long tradition of Black Angus cattle breeding as well as their quarter horse breeding operation.

During the course of her life, Marion was committed to supporting education, Western heritage, and the arts. As president and trustee of the Burnett Foundation, she donated funds for a $57 million emergency center at the Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth, of which she served as director. A longtime trustee of Texas Christian University, Marion and the Burnett Foundation gave the institution $50 million to support its medical school, which is named in her honor. She also served on the board of regents at Texas Tech University and donated to the university’s National Ranching Heritage Center. Marion was a dedicated patron of the arts who supported cultural institutions in Texas and beyond. She served as a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and, together with her husband John, co-founded the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. When the O’Keeffe Museum opened in 1997, it was the first U.S. museum dedicated solely to a female artist; Marion served as chair of its board of trustees until 2016.

Marion also contributed immensely to arts and culture in her hometown. She was a trustee of and made transformational donations to both the Kimbell Art Museum and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. For the latter, Marion was a driving force behind the museum’s $65 million expansion in the late 1990s and early 2000s; she chaired the Modern’s building committee and commissioned renowned Japanese architect Tadao Ando to design a new building to house the Modern’s permanent collection. The Ando building received acclaim upon its completion in 2002 and remains an iconic presence in Fort Worth’s Cultural District. In 2003 Marion commented, “The birth of my child and the opening of the museum have been two of my proudest moments.” After her death in 2020, several renowned works in Marion’s collection were given to the Modern, among them works by Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Ellsworth Kelly, and Mark Rothko. These works were highlighted in the 2022 exhibition Modern Masters: A Tribute to Anne Windfohr Marion, which included other works in the Modern’s collection that were acquired with her support over the course of nearly fifty years.

Marion received numerous awards and honors throughout her life. She was named Fort Worth’s Outstanding Citizen in 1992 and received the Charles Goodnight Award in 1993, the Fern Sawyer Award from the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in 1994, the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in New Mexico in 1996, and the Merle Wood Humanitarian Award from the American Quarter Horse Foundation in 1999. Marion was honored by the National Ranching Heritage Center with the National Golden Spur Award in 2001 and the Boss of the Plains Award in 2003. She was named a “Great Woman of Texas” by the Fort Worth Business Press in 2003 and was the first woman to win the Bill King Award for Agriculture in 2007. She was inducted into the Texas Business Hall of Fame in 1996, the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in 2005, the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame & Museum in 2007, the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum’s Hall of Great Westerners in 2009, and the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame in 2014. The National Cowgirl Museum named a gallery after her in 2015.

Anne Windfohr Marion died from lung cancer on February 11, 2020, in Palm Springs, California. Former President George W. Bush remarked at the time of her death, “She was a true Texan, a great patron of the arts, a generous member of our community, and a person of elegance and strength.”