Gallery gets $150,000 Luce grant

T he Henry Luce Foundation has awarded the Memorial Art Gallery a $150,000 grant in recognition of its American art collection. The award will help make the collection accessible worldwide through development of an online database.

While the two-year project will catalog all 3,442 objects in the American collection, it also will offer digitized images and new research on 250 key works. These include Winslow Homer's Artist's Studio in an Afternoon Fog; John Sloan's Election Night, Herald Square; and Thomas Hart Benton's Boomtown. The grant also provides for a full-time curatorial assistant who will coordinate research efforts and oversee creation of the image bank. Remaining funds will help support a printed catalog of the American collection.

MAG is one of only a handful of museums invited by the Luce Foundation to submit proposals to its American Collections Enhancement initiative. Launched in 1996, ACE supports small to mid-size museums with significant holdings of American art.

"This prestigious grant underscores the quality and national significance of the gallery's collection of American art," said MAG Director Grant Holcomb. "At the same time, it will serve as a catalyst for making the collection more accessible to a national and international audience through exhibitions, publications, and the Internet."

This marks the second time that MAG has been recognized by the foundation. An earlier grant, in 1993, supported the exhibition Head, Heart and Hand: Elbert Hubbard and the Roycrofters.