Carnegie Museum of Art is receiving a $3 million gift to support decorative arts.

Dr. Ellen Lehman has created two $1.5 million endowments for the museum, one paying for a decorative arts curator position, and another underwriting purchases of decorative arts and pre-1970 paintings and sculptures. The gift comes from the Alan G. and Jane A. Lehman Foundation, named for Dr. Lehman's late parents -- her father was a Carnegie Museums trustee and her mother president of the art museum Women's Committee.

The gift is part of the museum system's $150 million capital campaign, called Building the Future. It will create the first endowed curatorship at Carnegie Museum of Art, a position currently held by Jason Busch, who was named decorative arts curator in 2006.

-- Tim McNulty, cultural arts writer