$1 Million Gift will Support a Rotating Two-Year Fellowship for Emerging Museum Professionals
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Columbus Museum of Art is pleased to announce that the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation has permanently endowed the Lichtenstein Foundation Curatorial Fellowship for Diversity and Inclusion in the Arts at the Columbus Museum of Art with a $1 million gift. This rotating two-year fellowship in the Museum’s curatorial department is designed to engage an emerging museum professional committed to excellence in representing diversity, inclusion, equity and access in the field. It will serve as a platform for new voices in the curatorial field and an incubator for new ideas.
The Lichtenstein Foundation Curatorial Fellowship is the latest outcome of a partnership between the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation and the Columbus Museum of Art. The endowment follows a 2017 gift of $300,000 to fund the Museum’s current two-year Roy Lichtenstein Curatorial Fellowship. A national search for the second Roy Lichtenstein Curatorial Fellow is currently underway. The existing fellowship program will continue through 2025, at which point the endowed position will become active.
The fellowship addresses situations in which promising post-graduates who wish to become museum professionals find it difficult to gain a foothold in this competitive field due to a lack of practical experience. At the same time, mid-size museums situated in regional urban centers often find it challenging to maintain support positions within their curatorial departments. Pairing community focus and artistic excellence, the culture and context of Columbus Museum of Art offers the Lichtenstein Foundation Curatorial Fellow a distinct environment in which to gain curatorial experience.
“The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Board and Staff realize that one of our most enduring legacies, beyond sharing and interpreting the life work of Roy Lichtenstein, would be to facilitate capability and capacity growth in art museums and especially their representative diversity in career staffing,” said Dorothy Lichtenstein, president of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. “Our newly endowed Fellowship program at the Columbus Museum of Art recognizes the importance of this museum and the special opportunities it can provide, not only linked to our programs at The Ohio State University and the audiences in Columbus but also to art museums throughout our nation. We appreciate this creative partnership with CMA and we are confident they will exceed even their own ambitious goals.”
“The pathway into a curatorial career is beset with structural inequities,” added Nannette Maciejunes, executive director and CEO of Columbus Museum of Art. “This transformative gift supports the Museum’s commitment to having the appropriate institutional culture, truths and trust to address our strategic principles of inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility. We need to invite a broader mix of people to the table making decisions about museums and cultural institutions.”
“We know that everything we do to change the museum from inside is key to its ability to effect positive change outside,” said Tyler Cann, the Museum’s director of exhibitions and Pizzuti Family curator of contemporary art, “We believe that museums can help mend the fabric of our shared culture, but for that to happen different and diverse voices need to be heard. We are truly delighted that the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation has supported us in such a meaningful way. The Lichtenstein Foundation Curatorial Fellow will be a huge support and a critical thought partner.”
The Lichtenstein Curatorial Fellowship for Diversity and Inclusion in the Arts will help launch the careers of these emerging museum professionals and empower them to represent a new voice and perspective, reflecting a continually changing social landscape.
About Columbus Museum of Art
Columbus Museum of Art, located at 480 East Broad Street, creates great experiences with great art for everyone. Ongoing support is provided by the Greater Columbus Arts Council, Nationwide Foundation, Ohio Arts Council, and the Paul-Henri Bourguignon and Erika Bourguignon Fund for Visual Arts; Bette Wallach Fund for Columbus; and Richard G. and Mary Jo Seyler funds of The Columbus Foundation. CMA, Schokko Café and the Museum Store are open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. General admission is $18 for adults; $9 for seniors (60+), students (18+) and children 4 and older; free for members and children 3 and younger; $5 on Thursday evenings (5-9 p.m.). A separate admission fee of $8 applies for current special exhibition, Raggin’ On: The Art of Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson’s House and Journals. General admission is free for all on Sundays. CMA charges a flat rate of $5 for parking in the Museum’s East Gay lot. CMA members park for free. For additional information, call 614.221.6801, visit www.columbusmuseum.org, or find us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram @columbusmuseum.
About the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation
By the wishes of the artist and his family, the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation was chartered as a Private Operating Foundation in 1998, primarily to facilitate public access to the work of Roy Lichtenstein and the art and artists of his time; to create a catalogue raisonné of all known Lichtenstein works; and to share information which could assist the development and education of the next generations of curators, critics and scholars concerning the artist Roy Lichtenstein.
During the last fifteen years the Foundation has expanded activities to include: the rescue, organization and donation of the enormous and historically consequential Shunk-Kender and Harry Shunk Photography Collections to a consortium of five international museums/research centers; consistent support of the Aspen Institute National Study of Artist-Endowed Foundations; providing expertise to numerous Lichtenstein exhibitions; supporting numerous outreach and research topics, including artists’ materials and postwar art and art history; building a Study Collection of early Lichtenstein and later generative sketches, models, maquettes and artifacts; functioning as an image and information database for a broad range of art, art history and oral histories; and working with museums to acquire notable Lichtenstein artworks from their collections and the collections of others. For additional information, visit lichtensteinfoundation.org.
Media Contact: Betsy Meacham, 614.629.0328, betsy.meacham@cmaohio.org.
