The Terra Foundation for American Art has announced that it awarded $7.679 million in fiscal year 2014 (July 1, 2013–June 30, 2014) for 53 initiatives and partnerships that advance its mission of fostering the exploration, understanding, and enjoyment of the visual arts of the United States. Included among these projects is From Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic: Landscape Painting in the Americas, 1830–1930, a collaborative exhibition developed jointly by the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Terra Foundation. (View the complete list of awarded grants.)

“Landscape Painting in the Americas is a good example of the wide range of support we offer,” said Terra Foundation President & CEO Elizabeth Glassman. “In addition to providing financial support for the show, we’re contributing expertise and artworks from our collection, as well as enlisting the guidance of specialists from throughout the Americas so that many different points of view are reflected in the exhibition and the extensive academic and public programing that will occur at each venue. Our goal is to connect global audiences with the historical art of the United States and use it to inspire meaningful cross-cultural dialogues.”

The exhibition focuses on the century-long period when landscape painting was the primary medium for articulating conceptions of land in the development of cultural identity. Including approximately 120 works of art drawn from the organizers’ collections and loaned from museums and private collections throughout the Americas, Landscape Painting in the Americas will be accompanied by a 300-page scholarly catalogue. It opens at the Art Gallery of Ontario (June 20–September 7, 2015), after which it will travel to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, in Bentonville, AR, and the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, in Brazil, throughout 2015 and 2016.

“This exhibition is also a great way to celebrate the tenth anniversary of our grants program,” added Glassman. “It’s among the nearly 500 programs we’ve supported over the past decade in more than 30 countries, including Australia, Brazil, China, France, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom. These are milestones we’re very proud of.”

Other examples of the Terra Foundation’s global grants program include:

• Publication grants offered in partnership with the College Art Association, designed to advance and internationalize scholarship on American art and provide individuals outside the United States with greater access to resources in the field;
• A partnership with the Fulbright Scholar Program allowing scholars to teach American art history in China and in select countries in Europe; and
• A three-day symposium at the Griffith Center for Cultural Research, in Nathan, Australia, which analyzed American photographs of the exploration of the Asia Pacific in the mid-nineteenth century.

In 2005 the Terra Foundation adopted its “museum without walls” model, making historical American art more widely accessible to diverse international audiences through grantmaking, sustained partnerships, and other mission-driven initiatives. Through this strategic directive, the foundation engages individuals in Chicago and around the globe in an enriching dialogue on American art through exhibitions, academic programs, and K–12 education projects and public programs in Chicago.