The Terra Foundation for American Art announced today that $11,459,646 was awarded in fiscal year 2016 (July 1, 2015–June 30, 2016) for nearly 80 initiatives and partnerships worldwide, including:

• A $4.5 commitment to the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art to increase access to its extensive collection of archival material on the artists, collectors, dealers, and scholars who have shaped the history of art in the United States;
• Postdoctoral teaching fellowships at Humboldt Universität Berlin;
• The panel discussion “Women and Black Folk Art,” at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, in Chicago;
• The Terra Foundation Essays series; and
• Numerous international exhibitions, including Mary Cassatt Retrospective, at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; Alexander Calder and Fischli/Weiss, at the Fondation Beyeler, in Basel, Switzerland; and Continental Shift: Nineteenth Century American and Australian Landscape Painting, at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, in Perth.

“For more than a decade, the foundation has been actively supporting projects that inspire the exploration, understanding, and enjoyment of the visual arts of the United States,” explained Terra Foundation President & CEO Elizabeth Glassman. “This year’s awards demonstrate the geographic and topical range of our efforts, which result in meaningful cross-cultural exchanges with audiences across the globe.”

For instance, Denise Mimmocchi, Curator of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, in Sydney, had this to say of the foundation’s support for the exhibition Making Modernism: O’Keeffe, Preston, Cossington Smith (pictured above), which she co-curated and includes the work of American painter Georgia O’Keeffe alongside that of Australian modernists Margaret Preston and Grace Cossington Smith: “The Terra Foundation has facilitated a transnational and truly collaborative curatorial model…establishing a significant connecting trajectory between American and Australian art histories at this time; that is, the expansion in thinking of our national arts in global terms, while not downplaying their importance at a local level.”   

Similarly, Gregory Galligan, director and co-founder of the Thai Art Archives (TAA), in Bangkok, and the recipient of a research travel grant stated, “As part of our extensive focus on the research and recovery of forgotten or ‘lost’ aspects of Thai modern and contemporary art history, I developed an exhibition concept relating to how the visits of Robert Rauschenberg to Thailand in 1964 and 1983 may have informed, in some measure, the development of Thai modern and contemporary art since the 1960s. Given TAA’s shoestring budget, I had little hope of conducting research at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in New York until a Terra Foundation curatorial travel grant made this possible.”

“These are just a few examples of the programs we support—since 2005 the Terra Foundation has awarded nearly $80 million for more than 700 projects in countries around the world, including Australia, Brazil, China, Israel, Japan, Russia, and South Korea,” added Glassman. “Because, ultimately, we believe that art has the power both to distinguish cultures and to unite them.”

Terra Foundation for American Art
Established in 1978, the Terra Foundation for American Art is dedicated to fostering the exploration, understanding, and enjoyment of the visual arts of the United States. With financial resources of more than $350 million, an exceptional collection of American art from the colonial era to 1945, and an expansive grant program, it is one of the leading foundations focused on American art, supporting academic programs, exhibitions, publications, and research worldwide. For more information about the Terra Foundation’s global mission and worldwide grant program, please visit www.terraamericanart.org.