The Carl Schmitt Foundation, a not-for-profit corporation, was established in 1996 to perpetuate the legacy of the American artist Carl Schmitt (1889-1989), and to make his achievement as an outstanding man, artist, and thinker on aesthetics better known and appreciated. Using the example of Schmitt's life, the Foundation seeks to educate the public and artists on the role of Beauty in everyday life and the artistic vocation through exhibits, articles, books, concerts, conferences and more. 

In keeping with Schmitt’s aesthetic vision, the Carl Schmitt Foundation, while esteeming the traditions and values of the past, looks toward the future through a lively and enriching dialogue with modernity. The core of this dialogue is the relevance of truth, goodness, and beauty in the twenty-first century and beyond, as necessitated by the human spirit and manifested in the arts.

Headquartered at Schmitt’s last studio in Silvermine (Wilton), Connecticut, which has been renovated to serve as a research center and gallery, the Carl Schmitt Foundation encourages this dynamic interplay of creativity and scholarly research into what Schmitt called the “energy that is behind the arts” through lectures, symposia, papers, and this website.

A library of some two thousand volumes focusing on American art and a core collection of Schmitt’s paintings, pastels, drawings and manuscripts serve to maintain and direct this study. These manuscripts include Schmitt’s book entitled Europe and the Arts, extensive correspondence with fellow artists, and his Studio Notes, covering seven decades of his life and thought.