Henry Luce Foundation American Art Program Grants

The Henry Luce Foundation American Art Program provides grants to support museums that act as open forums for creative expression and visual arts-centered dialogues about the past, present, and future of the United States. Through grants for innovative projects in the visual arts, the program empowers museums to foreground the experiences of underrepresented artists and cultures, redress accepted histories, and welcome diverse collaborators and communities into conversation.

The program offers two types of grants: Responsive Grants for projects in the visual arts across all media and chronologies, including Native American art and cultural objects. Successful applicants will initiate or apply new research and fresh approaches to collection-focused documentation, publications, reinterpretation, reinstallations, and in-house or touring exhibitions. The program encourages projects that address collection holdings that have been inadequately preserved, studied, shared, or presented, with preference for projects that exemplify ethical best practices, particularly with ethnically specific collections. Exhibition Competition grants support scholarly loan exhibitions that contribute significantly to the study and understanding of art of the United States, including all facets of Native American art.

The 2026 application calendar includes: April 24 deadline for institutions to submit an exhibition Concept Note through the online portal; May 15 notification of first-round decisions; June 26 deadline for selected institutions to submit full proposals; July 24 notification of second-round decisions; September 25 notification of final-round decisions; November 5 announcement of awards approved by the Foundation's board.