ALBANY, NY.- The University Art Museum (UAM) at the University at Albany has been awarded a $200,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation’s American Art Program. This funding, along with support from the University at Albany’s Office of the President and Office of the Provost, will be used to create a dedicated Museum Archive: a centralized, accessible, and professionally maintained space for the preservation and study of the UAM’s extensive archival holdings.

In addition to the creation of a physical space and the acquisition of archival storage systems, furniture, and equipment, the grant’s scope includes support for a two-year, part-time professional project archivist position. The project archivist will organize, describe, and create finding aids for the archive collections, which will be made accessible through a searchable digital database, and will help establish procedures and standards for the UAM’s archival program.

Over the past 58 years, the UAM has organized 593 contemporary art exhibitions, documented through extensive materials including artist correspondence, planning diagrams, exhibition checklists, photographs, catalogues, brochures, slides, audio and video recordings, and exhibition posters. The new Museum Archive will form an invaluable resource that chronicles the first 50 years of the UAM’s contemporary art programming, curatorial practice, and institutional history.

“We are deeply grateful to the Henry Luce Foundation for supporting this important project,” said Corinna Ripps Schaming, director/chief curator of the University Art Museum. “For nearly six decades, the museum has presented ambitious and influential exhibitions by artists who have shaped contemporary art and culture. This archive will preserve that history and make it newly accessible to students, scholars, curators, artists, and the public, while opening new possibilities for research, teaching, and future exhibitions.”





The Museum Archive will also function as an active research site, supporting discussions, talks, small panels, readings, and conversations related to its holdings. Planned initiatives include exhibitions that connect archival materials to contemporary art practice, curatorial history, and current UAM programming; student- and research assistant-led digital projects; and a Working Papers annual publication in which scholars, curators, and students present new research based on the archive.

“The Luce Foundation’s American Art Program is proud to help the University Art Museum at UAlbany develop its Museum Archive, a rich resource for students, scholars, and members of the general public alike,” said Randall Griffey, Program Director, American Art at the Henry Luce Foundation. “This is a critical step for the institution to better fulfill its mission and commitment to its various communities.”

Notable archive highlights include materials related to the UAM’s 1967 inaugural exhibition, Paintings and Sculpture from the Nelson A. Rockefeller Collection; writer Ralph Ellison’s commissioned essay and original typed manuscript for Romare Bearden: Paintings and Projections (1968); Allan Kaprow’s “Round Trip: A Happening” that took place in the University’s underground tunnel system on March 27, 1968; and the exhibition Tim Rollins: 15 Years of Art and Teaching (1998), which included a commissioned artwork by Rollins and K.O.S., A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 24 mixed media works on paper that are now part of the University at Albany Fine Arts Collections.

Other notable exhibitions documented in the archive include: The Responsive Eye (M.O.M.A.) (1968); Robert Rauschenberg Graphics (1970); Studio Museum in Harlem (1972); New Decorative Art (1983); Contemporary Art of the African Diaspora (1990); Our Land/Ourselves: American Indian Contemporary Artists (1991); Passionately Cuban (2001); Five Ways to Say the Same Sadness: New Work by William Pope.L (2004); Mary Reid Kelley: Working Objects and Videos (2014); and Dave McKenzie: An Intermission (2017).

This is the second grant awarded to the UAM by the Henry Luce Foundation. In 2018, the foundation supported the creation of the UAM’s Collections Study Space, a viewing and study gallery located near the museum in the Fine Arts building. The Collections Study Space houses the University at Albany Fine Art Collections, comprised of over 3,500 objects spanning over 50 years of modern and contemporary art, including paintings, photographs, prints, drawings and sculpture by many of the most significant artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Together, the Collections Study Space and the new Museum Archive will provide deeper and expanded access to the museum’s history, making its art collections, special collections, and archival holdings accessible to all. As part of a comprehensive, public research institution, the UAM is committed to providing spaces for creative, rigorous, interdisciplinary inquiry that can actively transform higher education. The Museum Archive will be free and open to classes, researchers, and the public, and staff will offer tours and research orientations.