Getty Expands Black Visual Arts Archives Program with 12 New Grants

The Getty Foundation announced today it has awarded $2.6 million for 12 grants to libraries, museums, and universities across the United States through its Black Visual Arts Archives program.

Designed to increase access to archival collections across the country that hold vital information about work created by Black artists, the multi-year program provides archivists with wider capacity to organize, catalogue, and digitize materials. A major goal of the Black Visual Arts Archives program is to increase visibility of archives to the public through exhibitions, community programming, and digital projects.

Cultural and academic spaces hold important records of powerful contributions to the visual arts by Black artists, including artist papers, records about exhibitions, educational programs, and more. However, many of these archives have been difficult to research, often because records are dispersed, not easily discoverable, or simply not yet formally processed.

“We need a fuller understanding of the influence of Black artists, architects, and cultural institutions to tell a more complete history of American art and culture, and we can work towards achieving this by investing in Black archives,” says Miguel de Baca, senior program officer at the Getty Foundation. “Black Visual Arts Archives delivers critical support to make these archives and the stories of creativity, resiliency, and community they hold more accessible to researchers and the general public.”

Five of the twelve projects received their Black Visual Arts Archives grant a few years ago as part of the pilot phase of the program, which kicked off in 2022. These institutions spent months processing and digitizing archives, and several have launched public-facing projects to showcase previously inaccessible materials.

The New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture used Getty funding to publish a digital zine in honor of the institution’s centennial anniversary. It included a vibrant timeline of the institution’s history and was distributed during their annual Literary Festival. The institution also published its first-ever finding aid for their extensive artist files, which include critical documentation about lesser-known artists, particularly Black and brown women.