The Getty Foundation announced it has awarded $2.6 million in grants to libraries, museums, and universities across the United States through its Black Visual Arts Archives program. Designed to increase access to archival collections across the country that hold vital information about work created by Black artists, the multi-year program provides archivists with a wider capacity to organize, catalogue, and digitize materials. A major goal of the program is to increase visibility of archives through exhibitions, community programming, and digital projects.
“We need a fuller understanding of the influence of Black artists, architects, and cultural institutions to tell a more complete history of American art and culture, and we can work towards achieving this by investing in Black archives,” says Miguel de Baca, senior program officer at the Getty Foundation. “Black Visual Arts Archives delivers critical support to make these archives and the stories of creativity, resiliency, and community they hold more accessible to researchers and the general public.”
Five of the twelve projects received their grant a few years ago as part of the pilot phase of the program, which started in 2022. These institutions spent months processing and digitizing archives, and several have launched public-facing projects to showcase previously inaccessible materials.
The New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture used Getty funding to publish a digital zine in honor of the institution’s centennial anniversary. It included a vibrant timeline of the institution’s history and was distributed during their annual Literary Festival. The institution also published its first-ever finding aid for its extensive artist files, which include critical documentation about lesser-known artists, particularly Black and brown women.
“Our records are more accessible and user-friendly than ever for scholars and the public,” says Jennifer Morris, archivist at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum. “We are grateful for a second grant from Getty, which will help us transcribe dozens of recently discovered audio and video recordings of D.C. artists who continue to have a tremendous impact on the region’s creative output.”
Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum used Getty funding to survey and digitize its archival records that document its history as an arts and educational venue for Black artists since the 1960s. Part of their work included digitizing papers related to the District of Columbia Art Association, which unveiled previously unseen materials like photographs of artist, educator, and member Georgette Seabrooke Powell. This research helped inform the museum’s current exhibition, A Bold and Beautiful Vision: A Century of Black Arts Education in Washington, DC, 1900–2000.
Archival projects will now kick off at seven institutions across the nation, including Amistad Research Center in New Orleans, California State University, Los Angeles, Clark Atlanta University, Emory University in Atlanta, Lincoln University of Pennsylvania, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and Visual AIDS in New York City.
“The Amistad Research Center has served as a catalyst for scholarship, public dialogue, and community engagement, anchoring both academic research and grassroots initiatives in historical truth and cultural memory,” says Kathe Hambrick, executive director of the Amistad Research Center. “Funding support from foundations, such as the Getty, is essential for Amistad and greatly appreciated.”