NEW YORK, NY.- Eli Wilner & Company is using the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe to raise money to support their ongoing grant programs that assist museums across the country with frame restoration projects. Over the past decade Eli Wilner & Company has worked with private donors to provide fully-funded and partially-funded grants to dozens of American museums and nonprofit cultural institutions. Using crowdfunding technology they will be able to expand this program even further.

Frame restoration projects are often among the last initiatives considered for inclusion in limited conservation budgets, especially during the past year with Covid-related revenue losses. This funding will allow the recipient museums to address frame restoration needs that might otherwise linger for years to come.

Eli Wilner & Company is raising $100,000 which will be awarded to American museums or non-profit cultural institutions by a panel of distinguished jurors, including former museum directors, auction specialists, and prominent collectors. As in past Wilner grant programs, museums will have the opportunity to apply for these funds, and their applications will be reviewed by the jury.

In 2020, Wilner awarded a fully-funded frame restoration grant to the Museums at Washington and Lee University, in Lexington Virginia, for the restoration of the frame on a 1779 portrait of the Marquis de Lafayette, by Charles Willson Peale, 49 x 40 inches. The portrait was originally commissioned by George Washington to hang in Mount Vernon. This project is currently in process at the Wilner frame restoration studio in Long Island City, NYC.

Eli Wilner has completed over 15,000 framing projects for private collectors as well as more than 100 institutions. The Wilner gallery is held in high regard by both institutions and private collectors for their expertise, extensive inventory, and superior quality of craftsmanship. This regard and confidence is evidenced by clients such as The White House, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, Yale University Art Gallery and many private individuals. In 2019, Eli Wilner & Company was honored by the Historic Charleston Foundation with the Samuel Gaillard Stoney Conservation Craftsmanship Award, for their work in historic picture frame conservation.