AGENCY: National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)

PROGRAM: American Masterpieces: Visual Arts Touring

OBJECTIVES: The American Masterpieces program is a major initiative to acquaint Americans with the best of their cultural and artistic legacy. Through American Masterpieces, the National Endowment for the Arts will sponsor performances, exhibitions, tours, and educational programs across all art forms that will reach large and small communities in all 50 states. This component of American Masterpieces will celebrate the extraordinary and rich evolution of the visual arts in the United States. Through the creation and touring of major exhibitions, art of the highest quality will be experienced by Americans in communities across the nation. Exhibitions may focus on schools, movements, traditions, subject areas, and themes that include but are not limited to:

• The Hudson River School
• American Impressionism
• Native American Art
• American Masterworks from Unique Collections including private collections
• Aspects of American Art Post-1945 to the Present
• Art of the W.P.A.
• Latino Art
• The Portrait in America
• American Naïve Art
• African American Art
• American Photographers and Photography
• American Decorative Arts
• The Art of the American West
• Industrial Design
• Architecture
• Costume and Textiles
• Folk Arts

The tour of an existing exhibition is eligible. Exhibitions must be scaled so they can be shown in small and mid-sized exhibiting institutions and shown for a period of 8-12 weeks at 2-5 venues which may include the organizing institution. The number of venues should be appropriate to the nature of the works on view. Exhibitions must be accompanied by related educational and interpretive components including brochures and catalogues. Educational material for children and youth must ensure the application of national or state arts education standards. Substantial efforts should be made to reach underserved communities.

ELIGIBILITY RESTRICTIONS: Organizations are limited to one American Masterpieces: Visual Arts Touring application per year.

DEADLINES:
BU Internal Deadline: August 7, 2009
Agency Deadline: September 17, 2009, 11:59 p.m., Eastern Time

FUNDING INFORMATION: The Arts Endowment anticipates awarding fewer than 10 grants, generally ranging from $30,000 to $300,000. All grants require a nonfederal match of at least 1 to 1.

AGENCY CONTACT:
Wendy Clark
Specialist, Visual Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20506
Phone: 202/682-5555
Email: clarkw@arts.gov
Web: http://www.nea.gov/grants/apply/AMVAT.html

INTERNAL REVIEW PROCESS: To screen potential proposals for this competition and coordinate institutional cost-sharing commitments, an internal deadline has been established. Faculty members interested in submitting an application should provide the following proposal information to their Associate Dean by Friday, August 7, 2009 for internal review purposes:

(1) a draft project description of no more than three pages;
(2) a draft budget representing both the request to NEA and the cost-sharing required to carry out the program, as well as an indication of your plans to meet the cost-sharing requirement; and
(3) a curriculum vitae for the project director.

Following the Dean’s assessment of the internal application, it will be forwarded to Associate Provost Joan Kirkendall for review and then to the Office of the VP for Research for final selection.  PIs will be informed if their proposal is selected for submission and advised of institutional cost-sharing commitments in time to complete and process their proposal for final review.

REMARKS: Applications must be submitted electronically using the Grants.gov system. Instructions and forms are available on the Grants.Gov website (http://www.grants.gov). Additional information about Grants.gov for BU Investigators can be obtained on the OSP website at: http://www.bu.edu/osp/electronic/index.html. Please contact the OSP Assistant Director assigned to your school or department as soon as possible to coordinate submission through the Grants.gov system.