OVERVIEW: The Terra Foundation for American Art makes grants for exhibitions and academic programs with the broad goals of increasing access and appreciation of American Art in the U.S. and around the world. The foundation also runs local grantmaking programs for K-12 education and public programs in the Chicago area.
IP TAKE: The bulk of Terra’s grants support art museums and institutes working in the field of historical American visual arts. Its grantees range from the world’s largest and most famous art museums to small local art venues and galleries. Terra also supports the academic field of American art history by funding symposia, conferences and fellowships at institutions around the world.
Terra is very accessible and runs open application programs for all its grant and fellowship programs and offers specific instructions, guidelines and due dates on its individual program pages. Unfortunately, grants are highly competitive, so plan accordingly when editing your proposal.
PROFILE: Art collector, businessman and former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Cultural Affairs Daniel Terra established the Terra Foundation for American Art in 1978. Based in Chicago, the foundation “is dedicated to fostering exploration, understanding and enjoyment of the visual arts of the United States for national and international audiences.” Terra supports exhibitions, academic programs, fellowships and visiting professorships and publications. In Chicago, it makes grants for K-12 education and public programs related to American art.
Grants for Visual Arts
The Terra Foundation’s grantmaking largely focuses on visual arts produced in “what is now the geographic United States” circa 1500 to 1980. The foundation’s three main goals are increasing public access to and appreciation of American art, supporting the field of American art scholarship and increasing appreciation of American art in Chicago. Visual arts grantmaking programs include the following:
Exhibition grants support exhibitions that “increase the understanding and appreciation of American art” and prioritize projects in the Chicago area and those that travel outside of the U.S. Grantees have ranged from the world’s most prestigious museums to many smaller, specialized arts organizations. One recent grant supported a retrospective on the work of Alison Knowles, a founder of the Fluxus movement in American art in the 1960s, at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Another grantee, the Denver Art Museum, used funding to organize an exhibit of indigenous American art that would travel to the National Palace Museum in Taiwan. Other recent grantees include France’s Musée de l’Orangerie, the Museu de Arte de São Paulo, the National Gallery of Art and the Olana Partnership in Hudson, New York.
Past/Present grants support temporary exhibitions at U.S. museums that connect historical American art with “more recent art and conversations of current relevance.” One recent grant supported the exhibit Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965-1975 at the Smithsonian Institute.
The Re-envisioning Permanent Collections initiative is Terra’s response to the COVID-19 crisis and aims to support U.S. museums that wish to re-organize permanent collections “to tell stories that convey a more expansive view of American art.” Still in its earliest stages, this program anticipates awarding grants in the range of $25,000 to $75,000 to American museums of all sizes.
Terra also awards grants for academic programs run by museums and arts organizations and publishing and translation projects on American art. Recent grants supported a project that makes the works of LatinX artists available online through Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts and a centennial publication for Chicago’s Renaissance Society.
Grants for Higher Education
The Terra Foundation names support for the field of American art scholarship as one of its main grantmaking goals. The foundation makes grants to colleges and universities and awards scholarships and fellowships to individuals studying or researching historical American art. Grants to institutions support academic workshops and symposia in the field of American art and are limited to colleges and universities in the United States, although the foundation has made grants to support international research groups composed of members from other countries. This program prioritizes “programs that place objects and practices in an art historical perspective” and excludes projects in the fields of architecture and commercial film and animation. Institutions of higher education may also receive funding from One recent grant supported a two-day symposium on the work of Andy Warhol at the University of Pennsylvania. Brown University received a grant for its symposium on representations of race in 19th and early 20th century American Art.
Terra’s publication grants program, which supports the publication of manuscripts on American art as well as the translation to or from English of books on American art. Book publication projects at Yale University, the University of Illinois and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland are among the program’s recent recipients.
Terra also supports higher education through its individual grants and fellowships program. The foundation currently runs fifteen separate programs, many of which consist of residencies at affiliated museums including the Smithsonian, Paris’s Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, the American Academy in Rome, the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, the Courtauld Institute of Art and the Netherlands’ Rijksmuseum, to name a few.
Other Grantmaking Opportunities
The Terra Foundation makes grants for K-12 education and public programs in the Chicago area. Education grants support both in- and out-of-school learning opportunities in American art, and public program grants focus on exhibits, installations and events with broad reach and that have the potential to develop the public’s interest in American visual arts. Through 2024, grants will focus on the historical art and design of the Chicago area.
Important Grant Details:
The Terra Foundation makes about $7 million a year in grants. The foundation’s exhibition grants are made in amounts of up to $350,000, while academic grants generally remain under $25,000. This funder supports a broad range of visual arts organizations, including some of the world’s largest landmark venues to local art museums and galleries in smaller towns and cities. The foundation maintains a searchable database of its past grants.
Terra runs open application programs for all of its grantmaking programs and provides specific information, guidelines and due dates on the individual program pages that are linked to its grant and fellowship opportunities page. General inquiries may be directed to the foundation’s staff via email or telephone at 312-664-3939
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