Exhibition Competition: The American Art Program supports scholarly loan exhibitions that significantly advance the study and understanding of art of the United States, including all facets of Native American art.

Proposals for loan exhibitions are considered once each year, and grants are awarded on a competitive basis. An external panel of advisors, including academic art historians, curators, and art journalists, participates in the final stages of the competition. They are selected for the aesthetic and historical merit of the art as well as on the intellectual rigor and originality of the exhibition’s conceptual framework. 

Only one exhibition per year can be submitted per institution. Interested applicants from within Duke should contact fundopps@duke.edu as early as possible.

Deadline for Concept Notes: April 26

Responsive Grants: Through its Responsive Grants, the American Art Program seeks to support a wide range of collection-based projects that advance the understanding and presentation of art of the United States. Eligible collection areas include paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, photographs, decorative arts, naïve and outsider art, traditional and studio crafts, architecture, design, and all aspects of Native American arts.

Each year the Foundation will support a number of substantial, carefully crafted projects that propose in-depth and multi-layered approaches to the study and exhibition of discrete areas of permanent collections. Applicants are encouraged to consider working with exceptional or challenging collection areas that have been under-utilized. One recent example was a three-year grant to the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, for a Whistler Watercolor Initiative that includes a collection-based exhibition, distinct print and on-line catalogues, a post-doctoral curatorial position, an object study workshop for emerging experts in the field, and summer internships for museum diversity.

Letters of inquiry can be submitted at any time.