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Getty Awards New Grants for Curatorial Innovation in Prints and Drawings

Nineteen new grants totaling over $1.55 million will support exhibitions, publications and digital projects that center the graphic arts as part of the Getty Foundation’s ongoing Paper Project initiative.

Prints and drawings are an unsung area of curatorial innovation and a place for museums to bring new forms of storytelling to their permanent collections. Launched in 2018, The Paper Project funds professional development and experimental projects for curators around the world who study prints and drawings to make graphic arts collections more accessible and relevant to 21st-century audiences.

“Permanent collections that include prints and drawings are the lifeblood of museums, archives and libraries,” says Heather MacDonald, senior program officer at the Getty Foundation. “As the cultural sector moves into post-pandemic rebuilding, institutions have a tremendous opportunity to refocus on their own holdings while they also invest in the professional growth of their staff. These grants provide the resources needed to take a deep dive into seldom-seen collections and develop creative and relatable ways to display works on paper in galleries, in print and also online.”

The curatorial projects represent collections of prints and drawings created across more than a millennium and dozens of countries. They also demonstrate the wide range of works on paper that exist, including personal travel journals, political posters, illuminated manuscripts, architectural plans and maps, woodcuts, acid-based etchings and more. Participating curators have chosen a variety of in-gallery and digital solutions to present these objects in fresh and compelling ways.

APS-Affiliated Grantees Include:

International Print Center New York - For an exhibition and accompanying publication on Margaret Lowengrund, the first woman in the United States to open her own hybrid printmaking workshop/gallery—The Contemporaries gallery. Project curators: Christina Weyl and Lauren Rosenblum

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) - For an exhibition on two key episodes in 20th-century political printmaking: German Expressionism after World War I and Mexico City’s Taller de Gráfíca Popular. Project curators: Erin Sullivan Maynes and Rachel Kaplan

For more information and the full press release please visit the external link below.

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