For arts, jolly good fellowships
Fifty artists will receive grants this year totaling $2.5 million from United States Artists, a new Los Angeles-based organization created to provide performing and visual artists with financial support and advocacy.
Founded with $20 million in seed funding from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Prudential Foundation and the Rasmuson Foundation, USA will award fellowships of $50,000 to at least 50 American artists each year in recognition of the arts’ positive cultural, educational and economic effect on society.
“Our hope is that this will provide a mechanism for organizations and individuals to support individual artists,” said Susan Berresford, president of the Ford Foundation and USA’s board chair. Already committed to underwriting the fellowships for coming years are arts patrons Agnes Gund of New York, Eli and Edythe Broad of Los Angeles, the Todd Simon Foundation of Nebraska, and Target Stores.
Nominees, chosen by arts experts, must be working artists 21 or older to qualify.
The inaugural fellowship recipients will be announced on Dec. 4 at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City.
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Lynne Heffley
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