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News Release

Last modified: Monday, January 26, 2009

IU Art Museum awarded $500,000 Mellon Foundation Grant

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jan. 26, 2009

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A $500,000 grant to the Indiana University Art Museum from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will help the museum strengthen its academic programs. The grant will be used over the next three and a half years to broaden curricular engagement with the museum's collections.

The IU Art Museum will be able to add to its existing staff a full-time senior academic officer and a three-quarters time interdisciplinary programs coordinator who will dedicate their efforts to developing new initiatives with faculty from a broader range of departments.

"Indiana University is fortunate to have many rich traditions in the arts and humanities, and this grant will enable us to build on those traditions and involve even more students in top-quality arts programs," said IU President Michael McRobbie, adding that the grant will also have an academic impact on areas including business and the sciences. "We are very grateful for this generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation."

"This award is a great honor, and could be transformative in strengthening our already clear commitment to academic uses of the museum's resources." said Adelheid M. Gealt, director of the IU Art Museum.

One of the collaborations, with the IU Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts and with faculty in the sciences, will offer a course on artists' materials based on the Art Museum's diverse collections. A second collaboration, with IU's Kelley School of Business, will result in the creation of a graduate course for MBA students focusing on the role of museums in society.

"The Indiana University Art Museum is world renowned for its outstanding collections, and it has a deep commitment to education and service," said Karen Hanson, IU Bloomington provost and executive vice president. "We are thrilled by the opportunities that this grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will make available to our faculty and students. With this grant, the museum will be able to offer new and enhanced modes of engagement with its superb resources."

Gealt said the grant has enabled the museum to achieve one of its longstanding strategic objectives: to expand its professional staff with the aim of improving engagement with the academic community. "We could not be more pleased," she said.

About the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation currently makes grants in six core program areas: Higher Education and Scholarship, Scholarly Communications, Research in Information Technology, Museums and Art Conservation, Performing Arts, Conservation and the Environment.

Within each of its core programs, the Foundation concentrates most of its grant making in a few areas. Institutions and programs receiving support are often leaders in fields of Foundation activity, but they may also be promising newcomers, or in a position to demonstrate new ways of overcoming obstacles to achieve program goals. For more information, see https://www.mellon.org/.

About the Indiana University Art Museum

With collections ranging from ancient gold jewelry and African masks to paintings by Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso, the Indiana University Art Museum is located on Seventh Street in the heart of the Bloomington campus. The Indiana University Art Museum's galleries are open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Angles Café & Gift Shop is open Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday noon to 5 p.m. The Art Museum's galleries are closed on Mondays and major holidays. The museum and all exhibitions and programs are free and open to the public.

For more information, see https://www.indiana.edu/~iuam/iuam_home.php.

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