Guild Hall has received $125,000 in grants to support exhibitions and initiatives by the East Hampton arts and cultural institution in 2018.
The Hearst Foundation awarded Guild Hall $50,000 in support of K-12 educational programming, both on site and in schools, such as Drama Literacy, Project Hero, Word Up!, ArtLink, Student Art Festival, Teen Arts Council, artXchange, and a professional production of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” incorporating local high school students as paid members of the cast and crew.
“We are honored and very grateful to be recognized by The Hearst Foundation” Guild Hall Executive Director Andrea Grover said in a statement. “Their investment underscores the importance of the arts as a vital component of primary and secondary education and provides us with the opportunity to expand this critical pillar of our programming.”
Announced earlier this year, the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation, which is dedicated to the study of New York State history, gave $50,000 for the digitization of Guild Hall’s permanent collection to build a searchable online database of 2,400 artworks, which Guild Hall stated will become a critical resource for understanding Eastern Long Island’s legacy as an artist colony. The Gerry Charitable Trust, which funds preservation projects, has awarded an additional $20,000 to support the same initiative.
Also newly announced is a $5,000 grant from the Robert Lehman Foundation toward the Guild Hall Museum’s 2018 exhibition “The Artist Curated Collection,” to be curated by Bryan Hunt. The new annual series will invite artists whose work is included in Guild Hall’s collection to interpret and inform art history by selecting and organizing a show of works from the permanent collection, according to the museum.