A charitable trust established by a Fairfield family donated $100,000 this month to Dallas Museum of Art to help conserve paintings and decorative arts created prior to 1920.

The endowment from the Jean and Graham Devoe Williford Charitable Trust is the first large gift to the museum foundation.

The museum has several pieces from Williford's private collection in its American galleries.

Items on loan include Tiffany and Gorham flatware and silver pieces, a bronze sculpture by Frederick William MacMonnies and paintings by Cecilia Breaux, Thomas Daughtry and Asher B. Durand.

Williford, a native of Fairfield, was an art collec- tor and dealer in New York, N.Y. Items from his collection are also on display at Tyler Museum of Art. Jean Williford was his mother.

In 2006, DMA presented "There and Back Again: Selections from the Graham D. Williford Collection of American Art."

The exhibit of American paintings and silver explored the relationship between American and European arts after the Civil War.

The Jean and Graham Devoe Williford trust was founded in 2006 after Williford's death and is officed on the west side of the courthouse square in Fairfield.

The foundation office houses a small gallery of paintings and decorative art that may be viewed for free.