Philanthropy without borders: Calouste Gulbenkian’s founding vision for the Gulbenkian Foundation

Abstract

Established on his death in 1955, the Armenian oil magnate Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian’s eponymous foundation enjoys a high profile in the cultural life of Lisbon and Portugal as a whole. Gulbenkian’s correspondence as well as that which passed among Cyril Radcliffe, José de Azeredo Perdigão, and others involved in helping plan and then establish the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation indicates that the parameters of the latter’s activities were much fought over in its early years. The course set by the Foundation under Salazar’s dictatorship does not reflect the benefactor’s original intentions, which anticipated more recent models of charitable giving in their scope and dynamism.