The Getty Foundation has launched a new $1.5 million grant program that will provide funds for projects related to prints and drawings. The intention of the funding is to improve the area of care for, research of, and general visibility of works on paper, as they tend not to receive as much attention as paintings and sculpture.
Many museums and other cultural institutions do not have adequate resources to conserve prints and drawings; they are unique types of objects with their own unique conservation needs because paper, ink and pigment can all be easily deteriorated due to aging.
Training and education, conservation, and collaborative projects are all supported through this grant program. Institutions can use the funds to train up-and-coming conservators in how to properly handle their collections, create better storage environments for their collections, and more effectively document their collections.
Strengthening Care for Works on Paper
Prints and drawings are protected from environmental damage by conservation experts. Experts stabilize fragile materials, repair tears and stop things from getting worse. Grants allow institutions to hire experts, obtain the correct archival materials and develop long-term conservation strategies.
Scholars use prints and drawings to learn more about how artists created works of art and in what historical time frames those works were created. Many artists created sketches or prints so they could try out ideas for major pieces of art. Grant funding enables researchers to access collections, create catalogs of artworks.
Educational programs are another example of how grant funding from this initiative can be used. Museums have the capability of creating programs such as workshops, internships, and fellowships in order to produce new professionals.
To reach these objectives, it will be important to engage the public in creating exhibits and digital resources to showcase works on paper that have little or no visibility (such as prints or drawings).
The Getty Foundation strengthens the cultural ecosystem through the strategic investment of funding that builds capacity to sustain/extend the impact of their investments beyond just the short term. Institutions will develop new frameworks.
An effort has been undertaken to recommit to particular areas of cultural heritage that have historically experienced either lack of accessibility or representation. The Getty Foundation will further that mission through empowering institutions to preserve/protect, study, and share works on paper.
