Uptown Downtown Digital Interpretation Planning Project

Recipient: Causey, Adera (Chattanooga, TN 37403 USA) in affiliation with Hunter Museum of American Art

Goal: Development of a digital interpretation plan for the Hunter Museum of Art's Uptown Downtown gallery.

Description: The Hunter seeks to develop a humanities-based, digital interpretation plan for the Museum???s Uptown Downtown Gallery. This gallery, comprised of early twentieth century paintings and works on paper, focuses on the theme of immigration and its many ramifications on that period. The Uptown Downtown Digital Interpretation Planning Project will allow the Hunter to gather, organize and classify in-depth, multi-media information using the stories and history illustrated by the works in this gallery. Advisors will assist the Hunter in identifying and gathering appropriate scholarship and determining the best way to present this information to visitors in an interactive digital format. It will also build institutional capacity by allowing the Hunter Museum to establish a foundation for an ongoing digital archive and a framework for the interpretation of other galleries.

Grant: 196967 / GE-50164-09,   Division: Public Programs,   Program: America's Historical and Cultural Organizations Planning,   Year Awarded: 2009

Villa Firenze and the Italian Embassy: Art and Artifacts

Recipient: D'Ambrosio, Alan A (New York, NY 10103 USA) in affiliation with Villa Firenze Foundation

Grant: 196811 / GE-50133-09,   Division: Public Programs,   Program: America's Historical and Cultural Organizations Planning,   Year Awarded: 2009

Picturing America Teacher Seminar

Recipient: Shoemaker, Marla K (Philadelphia, PA 19101-7646 USA) in affiliation with Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, PA 19101 USA)

Goal: The applicant requested a Chairman's grant of $24,200 to run a one-day in-service seminar that focuses on the images and themes of Picturing America (PA), together with the PA Teachers Resource Book. The seminar, taking place on September 19, will serve approximately 175 teachers and librarians from the Philadelphia-area schools, including the entire public school system and schools of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese, both of which have adopted PA system-wide. The teachers will be drawn from arts, humanities, and social studies fields, with the goal of advancing instruction in American history, civics, government, literature, and culture. The distinguished American collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art will receive attention for its relevance to the PA portfolio; however, the primary emphasis and the majority of time will be spent on actual PA reproductions and the Teachers Resource Book. The seminar presenters, who are well-established humanities scholars at local universities, will impart rich h

Description: A one-day teacher seminar that will explore the works of art in the NEH's Picturing America image set. Up to 175 Philadelphia area teachers and school librarians whose schools have received the image set will have the opportunity to connect these select works of art--representing three centuries of our share national heritage--to humanities-based classroom studies. As a result, each participant will gain tools they need to use Picturing America images and resources in the classroom and make curricular connections.

Grant: 196915 / BA-50018-09,   Division: Education Programs,   Program: Picturing America,   Year Awarded: 2009

Picturing America: System-wide Teacher Support

Recipient: Ramirez, Victoria (Houston, TX 77005-1803 USA) in affiliation with Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, TX 77265 USA)

Goal: The applicant requested a Chairman's grant of $24,000 to run a one-day teacher training workshop that focuses on the images and themes of Picturing America (PA), together with the PA Teachers Resource Book. The workshop, to take place in September 2009, will serve 150 teachers from the Houston Independent School District (HISD), which has adopted PA system-wide. The teachers will be drawn from arts, humanities, and social studies fields, with the goal of advancing instruction in American history, civics, government, literature, and culture, to all age groups and abilities. The distinguished American collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will receive attention for its relevance to the PA portfolio; however, the primary emphasis and the majority of time will be spent on actual PA reproductions and the Teachers Resource Book. The workshop presenters, who are well-established humanities scholars from universities across the country, will impart rich humanities content and background knowledge to p

Description: The MFAH proposes hosting a day-long workshop (9am to 4pm) in September 2009 to provide training for approximately 150 teachers from across the Houston Independent School District (HISD) system that will augment and enhance participants' use of the Picturing America resources. The workshop will combine art and historical content sessions designed to introduce visual analysis for scaffolding teaching strategies that feature the masterpieces in the Picturing America curriculum.

Grant: 196917 / BA-50020-09,   Division: Education Programs,   Program: Picturing America,   Year Awarded: 2009

Picturing America Summer Institute

Recipient: Johnson, Kathryn C (Minneapolis, MN 55404 USA) in affiliation with Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts

Goal: The applicant requested a Chairman's grant of $20,905 to run a one-day teacher training institute that focuses on the images and themes of Picturing America (PA), together with the PA Teachers Resource Book. The institute, to take place in late June or early July 2009, will serve 100 teachers from the Minneapolis public schools, which have adopted PA system-wide, as well as teachers from PA-adopting private, charter, church, and home schools in the Twin Cities and upper Midwest. The teachers will be drawn from arts, humanities, and social studies fields, with the goal of advancing instruction in American history, civics, government, literature, and culture. The distinguished American collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts will receive attention for its relevance to the PA portfolio; however, the primary emphasis and the majority of time will be spent on actual PA reproductions and the Teachers Resource Book. The institute presenters, who are well-established humanities scholars at local univers

Description: In accordance with the NEH Picturing America Chairman's criteria, the MIA proposes a one-day training institute that will engage up to 100 teachers with Picturing America resources, scholars, from the Twin Cities academic community, and strategies for integration of digital resources in the classroom and visual literacy enrichment.

Grant: 196916 / BA-50019-09,   Division: Education Programs,   Program: Picturing America,   Year Awarded: 2009

Survey of Central European Paintings Conservation

Recipient: Breazeale, William (Sacramento, CA 95814-5324 USA) in affiliation with Crocker Art Museum Association (Sacramento, CA 95814 USA)

Goal: A conservation survey of 178 paintings that will produce a checklist summarizing the construction, condition, and conservation needs of each. The collection focuses on narrative and genre scenes of the Dresden, Dusseldorf, and Munich schools.

Description: The Crocker's Central European paintings collection will be a centerpiece of the new permanent-collection galleries in an expanded Museum complex. The Balboa Art Conservation Center will do a conservation survey of 178 paintings and provide treatment proposals, with cost estimates, for 10 to 15 determined to be highest priority based on curatorial/conservation needs. With an entire gallery devoted to a major American collection of nineteenth-century Central European art, the collection will become, through public knowledge and curatorial and scholarly study, an international artistic resource. It will fill a gap in the history of American collecting, showing the common concerns of the Crockers and East Coast contemporaries and providing greater understanding of the importance the collection in national history. This grant will aid the Crocker's efforts for collaborative exhibition and publication with other institutions that are strong in this period.

Grant: 193816 / PG-50452-09,   Division: Preservation and Access,   Program: Preservation Assistance Grants,   Year Awarded: 2009

Survey of European and American Works on Paper

Recipient: Moldenhauer, Susan B (Laramie, WY 82071 USA) in affiliation with University of Wyoming

Goal: A conservation assessment of previously unassessed works of art, with particular attention to treatment needs and restrictions affecting travel or environment. Both of the collections to be surveyed comprise works on paper, including woodblock prints, etchings, engravings, serigraphy, and lithography.

Description: To survey for treatment, travel restrictions, and environmental regulations the remaining works on paper of the Anna Hoyt Mavor Collection and the 102 works on paper of the A. Rex Rivolo Collection at the University of Wyoming Art Museum. These collections comprise the primarily American and European artists from the 14th C to the mid-20th C.

Grant: 193936 / PG-50572-09,   Division: Preservation and Access,   Program: Preservation Assistance Grants,   Year Awarded: 2009

Gretchen Bender Collection Preservation Assessment

Recipient: Hanzal, Carla M (Charlotte, NC 28207 USA) in affiliation with Mint Museum of Art

Goal: A conservation assessment of filmmaker Gretchen Bender's (1951-2004) collection of 325 videos in nine different formats, dating from 1984 to 2001, that document regional fine arts; and the purchase of an environmental monitor and preservation supplies to care for this collection.

Description: With the requested $6,000 Preservation Assistance Grant from the NEH, The Mint Museum will contract with film archivist Kirston Johnson to conduct a two-day conservation assessment of the recently acquired Gretchen Bender video collection. The collection consists of approximately 325 videos in various formats dating from the 1980s to 2001. The goals of the assessment are to identify the conservation needs of the collection, establish estimates of needed conservation work and the time necessary to complete such work, prioritize the long-range plan for the preservation of works in the collection, and make recommendations for safely storing this collection of time-based media art. Based on her experience, the archivist anticipates that the videos will require basic preservation supplies such as labels, acid-free record storage boxes, and adequate steel shelving units, as well as an environmental monitoring system. She would return for a 3rd day to oversee the installation of the monitor.

Grant: 194021 / PG-50657-09,   Division: Preservation and Access,   Program: Preservation Assistance Grants,   Year Awarded: 2009

Storage and Environmental Improvements for the La Salle Art Museum

Recipient: Viljoen, Madeleine (Philadelphia, PA 19141-1199 USA) in affiliation with La Salle University (Philadelphia, PA 19141 USA)

Goal: The purchase of environmental monitoring equipment and storage supplies and furniture that would improve care for a collection of 5,000 works of European and American art from the Renaissance to the present. The consultant who conducted a conservation assessment survey and recommended the equipment, supplies, and furniture would return for a half day consultation after their installation.

Description: As stated in the 2007 Conservation Assessment survey, improving collections storage and environmental conditions are a top priority for the preservation of the La Salle Art Museum's unique collections. The Museum has already made many of the improvements recommended in the report and requests funding to finish the project. Collections stewardship is vital to ensuring the preservation of the museum's collections for present and future generations. The completion of these upgrades will bring the La Salle Art Museum in line with current museum standards.

Grant: 193906 / PG-50542-09,   Division: Preservation and Access,   Program: Preservation Assistance Grants,   Year Awarded: 2009

Art of the Americas Wing - American Colonial and Federal Art

Recipient: Davis, Elliot Bostwick (Boston, MA 02115 USA) in affiliation with Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Goal: Construction, reinstallation, and interpretation of new galleries and period rooms featuring American Colonial and Federal art, as well as endowment for conservation.

Description: The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) requests a We the People Challenge Grant of $1 million to support the construction, reinstallation, and interepretation of its new galleries and period rooms featuring American Colonial and Federal Art. An endowment created by the grant and matching funds will also support the conservation of works to be included in these galleries. This collection, which ranks among the best in the world, will be exhibited in a new four-story wing that will serve as the centerpiece of a building expansion project scheduled for completion in 2009. We the People support will allow the MFA to tell the story of the birth of the United States, in all of its richness, through its reinstalled collection of American Colonial and Federal Art and through a variety of interpretive elements that are integral to the galleries.

Grant: 176784 / CZ-50143-08,   Division: Challenge Grants,   Program: Special Initiatives,   Year Awarded: 2008

Bayou Bend Visitor and Education Center

Recipient: Campbell, Bonnie (Houston, TX 77265-6826 USA) in affiliation with Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, TX 77265 USA)

Goal: Construction of a new Visitor and Education Center for the Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens.

Description: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) requests a Challenge Grant to build a new Visitor and Education Center for Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, a division of the MFAH and one of the country's premier collections of American decorative arts and paintings. Scheduled to open in 2009, the center will increase Bayou Bend's capacity to serve as a statewide educational resource for adults, children, families, teachers, and students. The new facility will include a library, a study center, two classrooms, an orientation gallery with space for thematic displays, offices, a retail space; and a special events/lecture pavilion. With the new center, Bayou Bend will serve as a major center for the scholarly study and appreciation of American material culture. The center will introduce a larger and more diverse audience to humanities-based initiatives and transform the visitors' learning experience by expanding the type and range of programs Bayou Bend can offer.

Grant: 186192 / CH-50431-08,   Division: Challenge Grants,   Program: Challenge Grants,   Year Awarded: 2008

Creating a Digital Resource of Islamic Manuscripts

Recipient: Noel, William (Baltimore, MD 21201 USA) in affiliation with Walters Art Museum

Goal: Cataloging and digitizing 236 Islamic illuminated manuscripts, which contain 53,000 folios that date from the 9th to the 19th centuries. Images and catalog data would be freely accessible via the museum's Web site and available through a portal maintained by Johns Hopkins University.

Description: Islamic Manuscripts of the Walters Art Museum: A Digital Resource will turn the illuminated and illustrated Islamic manuscripts of the museum, which are currently inaccessible to all but a tiny minority, into the Islamic Digital Resource (IDR), aiding in their preservation, and making them accessible. WAM?s collection of 236 medieval Islamic manuscripts remains underused both by the public and by scholars in the field, at least in part because the codices have never been catalogued. Current technology now allows for the possibility of cataloguing these books, generating digital images of the bindings of these manuscripts, and the 53,000 folios contained within them, and combining this information to create searchable digital surrogates. Through IDR we expect to open these closed books to all, and to provide different audiences with the information and the interfaces that they will need to mine this invaluable resource.

Grant: 189788 / PW-50086-08,   Division: Preservation and Access,   Program: Humanities Collections and Reference Resources,   Year Awarded: 2008

Visualizing Japan in Modern World History

Recipient: Parisi, Lynn S (Boulder, CO 80309-0279 USA) in affiliation with University of Colorado, Boulder (Boulder, CO 80309 USA)

Goal: A five-day workshop and follow-up activities for thirty teachers from a seven-state region to study the emergence of modern Japan from the late Tokugawa period through the Meiji period (1853 to 1911).

Description: The University of Colorado Program for Teaching East Asia proposes "Visualizing Japan in Modern World History" (dates 11/1/08-10/31/09), a digital humanities workshop to introduce teachers to new scholarship and resources on the development of modern Japan from 1853-1911/late Tokugawa-Meji periods. The workshop will be based on MIT's "Visualizing Cultures" (VC), a state-of-the-art digital project containing modules and databases that enable scholars, teachers, and students to engage with rare art resources to examine Japan's path to modern nation-state and empire. Through this residential workshop, 30 secondary teachers from seven states will work with leading scholars and curriculum developers to integrate the VC project's cutting-edge scholarship, previously inaccessible humanities resources, and creative pedagogy into world history and other appropriate curricula. Participating teachers will develop lessons to use in their own teaching and shared with other educators nationally.

Grant: 191697 / AZ-50029-08,   Division: Education Programs,   Program: Digital Humanities Workshops,   Year Awarded: 2008

A Matter of Faith: Relics & Reliquaries in the Middle Ages

Recipient: Rub, Timothy (Cleveland, OH 44106-1797 USA) in affiliation with Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, OH 44106 USA)

Goal: Planning of a traveling exhibition, catalog, introductory film, symposium, website, and public and educational programs exploring relics and reliquaries from Late Antiquity to the end of the Middle Ages.

Description: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio and the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland will join together to plan and organize an international loan exhibition entitled "A Matter of Faith; Relics and Reliquaries in the Middle Ages." The planning team will work to organize an exhibition of approximately 80 medieval reliquaries and related artifacts drawn from collections in the United States and Europe. By exploring the cult of relics from its humble beginnings in Late Antiquity to its height at the end of the Middle Ages and its evatual demise during the Reformation, "A Matter of Faith" will investigate the role and function of the visual arts in conveying the holy and examine the means by which the visual arts were employed to represent the divine on earth. The exhibition will consider the crucial role reliquaries played in the revival of three-dimensional sculpture in Western Europe. Venues will include the CMA, the WAM, and potentially the Vatican Museum, Rome, Italy.

Grant: 189941 / GE-50028-08,   Division: Public Programs,   Program: America's Historical and Cultural Organizations Planning,   Year Awarded: 2008

Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts

Recipient: Komaroff, Linda (Los Angeles, CA 90036 USA) in affiliation with Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Goal: Planning for a traveling exhibition, catalog, website, symposium, and educational and public programs examining pre-modern Islamic patterns of gift-giving.

Description: This pan-Islamic exhibition spans the 8th to 19th centuries and includes approximately 175 works of art from 3 continents. It explores gift-giving, an integral part of the social fabric of the pre-modern Islamic world that signified power, expressed political aspirations, or meant to obtain salvation. Its importance is demonstrated through the numerous and nuanced Arabic and Persian words for gift, which can specify the hierarchical relationship of the benefactor and the recipient, as well as by a genre of Arabic literature on gifts and rarities. An Islamic exhibition of this scope, with objects of the highest quality and aesthetic appeal, has never before been undertaken in the U.S. It will premiere at LACMA from December 19, 2010 to March 27, 2011 and will travel to one perhaps two venues in the U.S. Through these beautiful and diverse works of art, visitors will discover the rich traditions from which this art emerged and gain a better understanding of the nature of Islam itself.

Grant: 189902 / GE-50041-08,   Division: Public Programs,   Program: America's Historical and Cultural Organizations Planning,   Year Awarded: 2008

The Newark Museum African Art Collection Reinstallation Project

Recipient: Clarke, Christa (Newark, NJ 07102 USA) in affiliation with Newark Museum (Newark, NJ 07101 USA)

Goal: Planning of the reinstallation of the Newark Museum's collection of African art.

Description: The Newark Museum requests a $40,000 grant from the NEH to help support the planning activities for a major reinstallation of the Museum's historic and extensive African art collection. The new installation will explore both traditional and contemporary art works through an exciting cross-cultural thematic approach that aims to offer audiences a fresh perspective on the arts of this diverse and dynamic continent. Presenting the works through the lens of humanities themes ensures that the installation is more accessible to visitors and that audiences can readily connect to the art works on personal, cultural, social, political and ideological levels. Essential to the reinstallation will be the convening of teams of nationally and internationally renowned scholars whose expertise and creative thinking will help shape the content and focus of the new installation to best meet the educational and cultural needs and interests of the Museum's diverse audiences.

Grant: 189948 / GE-50035-08,   Division: Public Programs,   Program: America's Historical and Cultural Organizations Planning,   Year Awarded: 2008

Beyond the Frame: Transcendence and the Visual Arts

Recipient: Edman, Peter (Washington, DC 20005 USA) in affiliation with Trinity Forum, Inc. (Washington, DC 20007 USA)

Description: Develop a curriculum on the visual arts entitled "Beyond the Frame." This curriculum will include discussion modules on art history and development, means of approaching art and its criticism, the significance of various arts objects, and movements. The curriculum will explore the historical connections between religion and art, ways in which the religious debate over the power of images has influenced artistic forms (including the consideration of different views that Islam, Judaism, and Christianity have adopted toward image and art), and religious and philosophical views of beauty. We will use the curriculum at executive forums and disseminate through commercial publication.

Grant: 193794 / EE-50602-08,   Division: Education Programs,   Program: Teaching and Learning Resources and Curriculum Development,   Year Awarded: 2008

The Pleasures of Recognition: Norman Rockwell's Inspiration & Influences

Recipient: Moffatt, Laurie Norton (Stockbridge, MA 01262 USA) in affiliation with Norman Rockwell Museum

Grant: 194794 / GE-50131-08,   Division: Public Programs,   Program: America's Historical and Cultural Organizations Planning,   Year Awarded: 2008

Rehousing Records Related to the History of the Women's Studio Workshop

Recipient: Kalmbach, Ann E (Rosendale, NY 12472-0489 USA) in affiliation with Women's Studio Workshop (Rosendale, NY 12472 USA)

Goal: Purchase of storage furniture and preservation supplies to rehouse archives, scrapbooks, photographs, posters, and other records documenting the work of women artists and the history of the Women's Studio Workshop since its founding in 1974.

Description: Women's Studio Workshop (WSW) is requesting NEH support for archival preservation supplies to re-house 5,000 slides, 1,500 photographs, and 15,000 negatives documenting work by 500 contemporary women artists, 500 WSW hand-printed posters, other visual materials and paper records pertaining to WSW's artistic and community programming, 1974 to present. WSW, a women-run, women-focused visual arts organization, is the only remaining feminist art organization in the United States founded in the 1970s, and offers the only visual arts residency in the United States dedicated to supporting women artists. WSW is a specialist in artists' books, having led a revival of the genre in this country by initiating a Book Arts Grant Program in 1979. WSW has supported publication of 175 artists' books to date by an international community of artists. This project will build on two previous grants for WSW archive development supported by the NYS Archives and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Grant: 189240 / PG-50243-08,   Division: Preservation and Access,   Program: Preservation Assistance Grants,   Year Awarded: 2008

American Paintings Conservation Assessment

Recipient: Stuhlman, Jonathan (Charlotte, NC 28207 USA) in affiliation with Mint Museum of Art

Goal: A conservation assessment of the museum's American paintings, which include works by Thomas Sully, Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Cole, George Bellows, and Robert Henri. The museum has recently made American art one of its six primary collecting priorities and has hired a full-time curator for this collection

Description: With the requested $5,000 Preservation Assistance Grant from the NEH, The Mint Museums will contract with conservator James Swope to conduct a conservation assessment of the American paintings collection. The goals of the assessment are to identify the conservation needs of the collection, establish estimates of needed conservation work and the time necessary to complete such work, and use this information to create a prioritized long-range plan for the preservation of works in the collection. This information will enable the Curator of American Art to incorporate conservation plans into the collection's vision statement and to allocate future financial resources for conservation in the departmental budget. There are approximately 160 paintings in the American art collection, with three general areas of strength: Federal portraiture, 19th century landscape, and early 20th century realism. This painting collection has never been subject to a full conservation assessment.

Grant: 189282 / PG-50285-08,   Division: Preservation and Access,   Program: Preservation Assistance Grants,   Year Awarded: 2008