The Norton Simon Art Foundation (NSAF) was established in 1954 as The Hunt Foods Charitable Foundation. It is the culmination of several foundations formed by companies owned by the industrialist and art collector Norton Simon (1907–1993).
In July 1965, NSAF made its first art purchases—two large bronze figures by Alberto Giacometti. Today, it owns some of the most renowned artworks in the world, including Raphael’s Madonna and Child with Book, c. 1502–3; Jacopo Bassano’s The Flight into Egypt, c. 1544–45; Berthe Morisot’s In a Villa at the Seaside, 1874; Vincent van Gogh’s Portrait of a Peasant (Patience Escalier), 1888; Edgar Degas’s Dancers in the Rotunda at the Paris Opéra, c. 1875–78 and c. 1894; and Amedeo Modigliani’s Jeanne Hébuterne, 1918.
Since 1975, the majority of the Norton Simon Art Foundation’s collection has been on long-term loan to the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California.