More Grants for Arts at Guild Hall

David E. Rattray

Dec. 20, 2017

Mark Segal

Guild Hall has four grants totaling $125,000 that will support both its educational programming and the digitization and interpretation of its permanent collection, it announced this week.

The Hearst Foundation, which provides funding for nonprofit organizations and institutions working in the fields of education, health, culture, and social service, has awarded Guild Hall $50,000 to broaden its on-site and in-school arts programs for kindergarten through 12th grade, including its Drama Literacy, Project Hero, Word Up!, ArtLink, Student Art Festival, Teen Arts Council, artXchange, and a professional production of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” incorporating local high school students in paid roles as members of the cast and crew.

Two grants, $50,000 from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation and $20,000 from the Gerry Charitable Trust, will support the creation of a publicly accessible, searchable, online database of the 2,400 works in the museum’s permanent collection that will be an important resource for the study of eastern Long Island’s legacy as an art colony.

The Robert Lehman Foundation has awarded a $5,000 grant toward the museum’s 2018 exhibition “The Artist Curated Collection,” the first in a new series that will invite artists whose work is included in Guild Hall’s collection to organize exhibitions that draw upon the the museum’s holdings to interpret and inform art history. Bryan Hunt will serve as curator for the inaugural show.

The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation primarily supports the study of New York State history, which was the personal passion of Gardiner, who was the 16th Lord of the Manor of Gardiner’s Island until his death in 2004.

Robert Gerry, a New York oral surgeon and preservationist, established the Gerry Charitable Trust to support preservation projects.

The Robert Lehman Foundation enhances the role of the visual arts within American and world culture by supporting museum exhibitions, art education programs, scholarly publications, and lectureships.