Louvre, Guggenheim Among Major Museums Awarded Conservation Grants

Bank of America, which has a division that focuses on cultural philanthropy, has announced the 24 institutions that its giving funding to as part of a long-standing conservation program, which has been in affect for over a decade. Among the biggest ones receiving funds are the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Musée du Louvre in Paris.

The exact grant amounts given to each institution have not been disclosed.

The initiative, Bank of America Art Conservation Project, has since 2010 allocated private funds to museums to carry out conservation work of objects in their collection in imminent need of repair.

According to a statement, the bank have distributed some $20 million through the program.

Making the selections for this year, alongside a five-member team of advisors of the bank’s Global Arts division, is a seven-member advisory panel made up of long-time conservators. They include figures at major US museums, like the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, New York’s Guggenheim Museum, as well as the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

The 2024 grantees, however, are spread across North and South America, Europe and Asia, including the National Gallery London and Galleria Borghese in Rome.

Among the works earmarked for preservation, only one is contemporary: a digital installation titled Selections from Truisms, Inflammatory Essays, The Living Series, The Survival Series, Under a Rock, Laments, and Child Text (1989) by Jenny Holzer, that is currently housed at the Guggenheim.

The others are by artists from historical periods, most who were active in the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Impressionists Claude Monet and Paul Cézanne, and American sculptor Bessie Potter Vonnoh.