A small yet splendid repository of American art, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in Alabama, has just received a $75,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. The grant will go towards American art programming.

Founded in 1930, the museum was given the Blount Collection of American Paintings in 1988 which formed the cornerstone of its American art holdings. The collection encompasses key artists from every period including the colonial portraits of John Singleton Copley and Charles Wilson Peale; landscapes by Thomas Moran and Frederic Edwin Church; outstanding watercolor paintings by Winslow Homer, Maurice Prendergast and Charles Demuth; and modern masterpieces by Stuart Davis and Edward Hopper.

The Henry Luce Foundation invited 90 institutions to apply for the grant; 30 were awarded funds. The foundation developed the American Art Renewal Fund to respond to the economic downturn and the current need to strengthen American art activities in the nation's museums. Over $130 million has been awarded to support scholarly studies and awareness of American art at 250 institutions.