Amid Culture War Funding Cuts, Can Artist Foundations Save the Day?
Many successful people have time to plan their legacies, but the final months of Nancy Graves’ life were chaotic. In May 1995, the 55-year-old sculptor, painter and printmaker was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and five months later, she was dead. With no heirs, she had to decide quickly what to do with her belongings and wealth. Like many other artists with significant holdings of artwork and other assets, she created a nonprofit foundation through her will to shelter her estate from high death taxes. But what sort of foundation should this be? What would its purpose be?
Most artists’ foundations serve the posthumous interests of the artists, as trustees and administrators arrange exhibitions of their work, prepare a catalogue raisonné, inventory artwork and make documents and archival material available to scholars. The Henry Moore Foundation in England, for instance, was set up in 1977 to “advance the education of the public by promoting their appreciation of the fine arts, particularly the work of Henry Moore.” In somewhat more inflated language, the foundation created by Salvador Dalí in 1983 in Spain aims to “promote, boost, divulge, lend prestige to, protect and defend in Spain and in any other country the artistic, cultural and intellectual oeuvre of the painter… and the universal recognition of his contribution to the Fine Arts, culture and contemporary thought.”
Contrast that with Graves, who modeled her idea of a foundation on those established by Adolph Gottlieb and Lee Krasner, whose primary purpose is to provide grant awards to artists in need.
Fifty or even 30 years ago, there were far fewer artists’ foundations. However, “post-1960 artists have done much better than many earlier artists who often didn’t have the wherewithal to set up a foundation,” said Sanford Hirsch, executive director of the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, which has been providing individual support and emergency grants to artists since 1977, the year after the foundation began its operations. “The Gottlieb Foundation Individual Support Grant program has been operating every year since and currently offers awards of $25,000 each to 20 artists.” The foundation’s emergency grant program, which supports artists who have suffered a recent catastrophic event and lack the resources to meet resulting needs, provides one-time grants of $15,000.
Adolph Gottlieb’s will stipulated the creation of a foundation to assist “mature, creative painters and sculptors… who should otherwise lack financial resources.” Other artists have taken note. Late in her life, Lee Krasner sought to create a foundation to protect her art and that of her late husband Jackson Pollock from being hastily sold or donated to museums to avoid estate taxes, as well as to educate the public on their respective artistic achievements. However, it was only when her lawyer, Jerry Dickler, reminded her that “but for the grace of God, she might have had to apply to a foundation for a grant, if any foundation like that might have existed,” that she decided the main activity of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation should be supporting artists. Since 1985, more than 5,000 artists in 79 countries have received approximately $87 million in grants.
Some families or boards of artists’ foundations that offer individual awards work to give structure to the artist’s intentions. The grant program at the George and Helen Segal Foundation was designed by the artist’s widow and daughter based on his “wish to be helpful to artists,” said Rena Segal, the sculptor’s daughter and vice president of the foundation. The will of painter Joan Mitchell indicated a desire “to support painters and sculptors,” according to Christa Blatchford, executive director of the New York City-based Joan Mitchell Foundation. However, the mechanism for supporting artists—through nomination rather than application—and the amount of support ($60,000 per artist over five years, with 15 artists selected annually), as well as a second program offering paid residencies ($600 per month for one to five months) at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans, were devised by the board.
Artists often have a specific idea of whom they want to help. Judith Rothschild (1921-93), for example, was a relatively obscure painter whose most critically acclaimed work came in the final six years of her life. The daughter of a wealthy furniture manufacturer, she inherited a collection of School of Paris artists from her parents. Upon her death, she established a foundation aimed at supporting the conservation, documentation, publication, museum acquisition and exhibition of under-recognized artists—those she believed shared her fate.
Similarly, Nancy Graves wanted to help artists like herself. Her foundation’s grant program provides financial assistance to artists experimenting with materials and methods, “who wish to have the opportunity to master a technique, medium or discipline that is different from the one in which he or she is primarily recognized,” according to the foundation’s website. Graves herself was often criticized for working across disciplines—from polychrome sculptures to the vividly painted pieces she is best known for, as well as photography, film, set and costume design, and painting, the medium in which she earned her MFA. Through her foundation, she hoped to encourage others to do the same.
With little time left, Graves did what she could to support fellow artists. She donated her 5,000-book library to the Millay Colony for the Arts in Austerlitz, New York, and her art supplies to an art school in Santa Fe. As for her financial assets, she recognized the need for more direct grants to artists.
The Culture Wars—shorthand for the sharply polarized debates in the U.S. between conservatives and progressives over social issues— have led to a steep decline in congressional support for the National Endowment for the Arts. This included the elimination of most individual artist fellowships in the 1980s and ’90s, followed by cutbacks at many state arts agencies. More recently, in May 2025, the NEA abruptly terminated hundreds of grants to arts organizations nationwide.
In 2003, state arts agencies in 37 states provided fellowships to artists. That number dropped to 29 by 2014, according to research from the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. Total fellowships fell from 1,300 in 1994 to 762 in 2007. Meanwhile, combined fellowship and project grant funding to individual artists from state agencies declined from $10.18 million in 2003 to $6.77 million in 2015. As of now, 32 state arts agencies offer fellowships for individual artists. Of these, 27 provide direct, unrestricted funding and five partner with outside organizations to administer fellowships.
“These fellowships are a significant source of grant funding for individual artists,” Eddie Torres, president and chief executive officer of Grantmakers in the Arts, told Observer. He noted that state arts agencies have significantly increased support over the past decade, investing $38.1 million in 2023. Fellowship awards now range from $250 to $50,000, with a median award of $5,000. “State arts agencies support individual artists through a broad portfolio of grants and services, to the tune of about $38 million per year, or around a quarter of all state arts agency grant awards,” said Kelly J. Barsdate, executive advisor to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.
This is a marked improvement, but the need remains great. Over the past two decades, a growing number of artists have established foundations during their lifetimes or as part of their estates, with the principal mission of awarding grants or fellowships to individual artists.
Demand remains high. When the George and Helen Segal Foundation was established in 2000, its grant program was initially open to artists worldwide. “We were flooded with applications,” Rena Segal told Observer. The foundation soon limited eligibility to New York and New Jersey residents, and eventually only to artists in New Jersey. In recent years, it ended the grants program altogether to focus on promoting George Segal’s legacy through research and exhibitions. “Many artist-endowed foundations have sunset provisions,” Blatchford noted, adding that the Joan Mitchell Foundation established an endowment to maintain its grants program in perpetuity.
The Aspen Institute, a policy research organization in Washington, D.C., has identified more than 500 artist-endowed foundations, holding several billion dollars in aggregate assets, according to Christine J. Vincent, managing director of the Institute’s Artist-Endowed Foundations Initiative. Some of these foundations offer direct grants to artists or work with nonprofit organizations to provide awards through foundation funds. Others underwrite artist residencies. Their numbers are growing, Vincent told Observer, with some foundations “on the shelf, awaiting the artist’s passing.” Among these are the (Judy) Chicago (Don) Woodman Foundation, the Janet Fish Foundation, the (Joyce Kozloff) Crossed Purposes Foundation and the Pat Steir Foundation.