NEW YORK, NY.- In 2025, the Coby Foundation awarded more than $850,000 to 26 projects in the fields of textiles and fashion, the largest amount in the Foundation’s 24 years of grantmaking. Grants are supporting an exciting array of projects at museums and historical organizations across the Northeast.

The majority of grants support projects showcasing contemporary artists who work in fiber or incorporate textiles into their artwork. Examples include the Japan Society’s exhibition Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries, which featured a site-specific commission marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II ($50,000) and Performa’s commission of Tau Lewis: No one ascends from the underworld unmarked, the artist’s first live performance incorporating her monumental, otherworldly figures ($25,000). The Foundation also supported the Visual Art Center of New Jersey’s exhibition Leila Seyedzadeh: Under the Sky, Above the Sea ($12,000), the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art’s Jean Shin: Bodies of Knowledge ($20,000), public programs at the Michener Art Museum to complement its presentation of Anila Quayyum Agha: Interwoven ($20,000), and a suite of public programs at MASS MoCA accompanying Jimena Sarno: Rhapsody and Technologies of Relation ($40,000). Solo shows of living artists opening in 2026 and 2027 include the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum’s Jennie Jieun Lee: Elements and Grooves ($15,000), the Fuller Craft Museum’s Jeila Gueramian: Forest of Here ($20,000), and the Guggenheim Museum’s Do Ho Suh. Pratt Manhattan Gallery will present a group show, RugLife, exploring recent work by artists who use the medium of the rug to explore ideas about identity, politics, history, and the environment ($15,000).

A first-time grantee, Traditional Arts in Upstate New York, is presenting work by Mohawk weavers, basket makers, and beadwork artists in Threads of Connection: Mohawk Arts and Environmental Stewardship ($15,000). Also in Upstate New York, the Thousand Islands Arts Center is spearheading Weave Across America, a collaborative coverlet representing an American flag made up of sections created by weavers from each of the 50 states ($15,000).

The Coby Foundation supported groundbreaking fashion exhibitions including Legendary Looks: The Art of Effects Design in House Ballroom, co-organized by City Lore, ArtsWestchester, and Pioneer Works ($50,000); The Vietnamese Áo Dài in a Time of War: Fashion, Citizenship, and Nationalism (1954-1975) at the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery at College of the Holy Cross ($44,000); Dress, Dreams, and Desire: Fashion and Psychoanalysis at the Museum at FIT ($50,000); and Andrew Gn: Fashioning the World at the Peabody Essex Museum ($40,000). The Foundation is also supporting the planning phase of two upcoming exhibitions: the Bard Graduate Center’s Goddesses in the Machine: Fashion in American Silent Film ($40,000) and Historic Northampton’s, Northampton Clothes, Northampton Stories ($30,000).
The Coby Foundation supported the Museum of Modern Art’s presentation of the major traveling exhibition Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction ($25,000) and the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum’s Printed Textiles from Kinngait Studios ($28,500), which explores mid-century textiles designed by Inuit printmakers. Additional grants for historical topics included the Smithsonian Asian American Pacific Museum’s, How Can You Forget Me: Filipino American Stories ($50,000), which “unpacks” clothing and textiles discovered in steamer trunks left in a fraternal lodge, and Historic New England’s re-creation of the clothing worn by an enslaved man, Cicero, during the American Revolution ($17,000). Historic Trappe received $20,000 for its innovative programming initiative The Naked Bed 2.0: Dressing a Revolution, which interprets Revolutionary-era textile and upholstery practices, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art was awarded $80,000 to support the presentation of four monumental tapestries designed by Raphael in the upcoming exhibition Raphael: Sublime Poetry.

In addition to exhibitions and programs, the Coby Foundation awarded grants for digitization and conservation projects. It awarded $30,000 to Historic Richmondtown to support the cataloging and digitizing of its historic shoe collection. Greater Hudson Heritage Network, which funds conservation treatment for museums in New York State through its NYSCA/GHHN Conservation Grant Program, received a three-year grant of $155,000 to expand its funding for at-risk textiles and offer grant workshops to encourage smaller organizations to seek funding for textiles.