Award highlights common purpose between organizations as Mellon’s belief that arts are essential to human understanding parallels MacDowell’s long-held axiom that art makes the world a better place.
The Mellon Foundation has awarded a $600,000 grant to MacDowell, the nation’s first artist residency program. The Mellon Foundation, the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities, will distribute the non-restricted grant to MacDowell over a period of two years to be used to ensure our program benefits the widest range of creative artists possible. It is MacDowell’s first grant from the Mellon Foundation.
“This generous grant from the Mellon Foundation is crucial to our ability to continue to offer uninterrupted time and private studio space to artists,” said MacDowell Executive Director Chiwoniso Kaitano. “It is especially gratifying that it comes from an organization that sees common purpose with us at this critically important time. Mellon’s generosity and passion for equity in the arts aligns with our own efforts to ensure future cohorts of Fellows continue to reflect our vision and our commitment to artists from all backgrounds and from all regions of the world.”
The Mellon Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. MacDowell is honored to share in this pursuit of enriching our world through art by providing a safe and inspiring place for art to be made.
More than a century in the making, the MacDowell residency program offers artists a balance of community, camaraderie, solitude, and dedicated work time. Here, artists dive deeper into and rediscover their practices, find inspiration in their cross-disciplinary exchanges with other Fellows, and thrive creatively in our 450 wooded acres. MacDowell provides a private studio, three nourishing meals a day, and a cohort of other talented artists to share ideas and build community, so that Fellows may prioritize the freedom to think deeply, to recharge, and to create.
MacDowell, which has provided more than 16,000 residencies to artists working in all disciplines, was established by composer Edward MacDowell and pianist Marian MacDowell, his wife, in 1907. When Edward died in 1908, Marian worked tirelessly to ensure artists, “regardless of social station,” would find a sanctuary in Peterborough, NH, with the time and space to do their best work for the betterment of society. Since then, MacDowell has become a haven of creativity and strives to make its residency program accessible and possible for all artists. Fellows with demonstrated financial need are eligible to receive travel grants and stipends that offset expenses accrued at home during their residency.
ABOUT THE ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. Learn more at mellon.org.
