Your Gifts at Work
Scholarship. Artistic Excellence. Community Engagement.
These hallmarks are at the heart of the museum’s vision to serve as a worldwide-renowned innovative cultural institution; an educational beacon in the region, country, and world; and a local economic driver. Philanthropy is critical to the museum’s ability to advance this vision. Whether it is a special one-time gift for an indentified project or an annual contribution to help offset general operational needs, your generosity helps the Cleveland Museum of Art remain free and to:
- Share its world-renowned collection of more than 60,000 objects spanning 6,000 years of achievement in the arts
- Attract and educate scholars on a global level, advancing the highest caliber of training and study
- Offer innovative educational programs to a broad range of visitors, including nearly 141,000 students each year
- Develop innovative special exhibitions that engage the public and sustain the reputation of the museum as one of the world’s most significant art museums
- Enhance the region’s economy and quality of life, making the community a more attractive place to live and work, and annually generating $140–150 million in economic activity within Cuyahoga County
We are most grateful to the many individuals, corporations, and foundations that invest in supporting these three areas of the museum’s mission. Highlighted below are a few examples of how recent funding has allowed us to expand and support these areas.
- Scholarship
The exhibition Variations: The Reuse of Models in Paintings by Orazio and Artemisia Gentilieschi (April 11-August 22, 2021) exemplifies how supporting the research of curators and conservators brings brilliance and knowledge to the community. Recent conservation of the CMA’s Italian Baroque painting Danaë, c. 1623 by Orazio Gentileschi (1563-1639) has revealed a more vibrant and refined painting than has hitherto been possible to perceive. It is an extraordinary work now conveying the artist’s trademark virtuosity in painting drapery and flesh tones. Danaë is the second version of a picture painted in Genoa around 1621-22 by Orazio, who often copied his own works; these subsequent versions can rival the original in quality.
While issues of attribution are still very much alive in several works by Orazio and his daughter Artemisia, it is clear that both artists returned to and reworked certain themes and compositions throughout their careers. In content and form, Orazio’s Danaë is a key example of this phenomenon. Without the research and work by CMA conservators, this revelation would not have been possible.
- Artistic Excellence
Artistic Excellence: Support to the CMA Fund for Exhibitions provides a gateway into artistic excellence spanning thousands of years. The CMA Fund for Exhibitions helps engage the public and tell stories that the permanent collection galleries cannot do alone. These exhibitions draw new audiences to the museum, advance scholarship in the history of art, and contribute to regional, national, and international dialogues. Even in times of unexpected and rapid change, the CMA Fund for Exhibitions helps to offer reliably rich experiences that unite, engage, and represent one of the most prominent ways to connect individuals and communities to the museum. Recognizing this, the effort to secure exhibition support is among the top strategic priorities of the museum.
Often featuring works on loan from other institutions and private collections around the globe, and scholarship from an international cadre of our peers and in partnership with our own curatorial experts, the CMA’s carefully chosen special exhibitions bring the world to our museum. And at times drawing on the exceptional breadth and depth of the permanent collection, influential exhibitions creatively express meaning through art objects and deepen visitors’ engagement with art and culture. Diverse cultures and histories from all periods take shape through challenging, scholarly, relevant, and innovative exhibitions that play a crucial role in northeast Ohio’s cultural vitality and in making the CMA one of the top art museums in the world.
CMA exhibitions forge strong emotional and intellectual connections between art and ideas to illuminate, fascinate, and inspire visitors. They help us make meaning in our lives and find connections in even our most difficult times. Above all, special exhibitions advance the museum’s abiding mission to “create transformative experiences through art, for the benefit of all the people forever.”
All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are supported by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions.
- Community Engagement
Parade the City, June 2021—Support of our community engagement initiatives encompasses many programs that the museum presents to the community free of charge. One of those programs is the city’s beloved Parade the Circle, which typically happens every June. Due to the impact of COVID-19 on large public gatherings, we have reimagined our 2021 Parade the Circle event as a city-wide installation of community-created art installations. Parade the City will keep the spirit of the beloved annual event alive by pairing local artists with community groups to create celebratory art installations all over Cleveland at community locations. We are partnering with 10-15 organizations, including Cleveland School for the Arts, Julio de Bergos Center, Esperanza, Rainey Institute, Cleveland Public Library, and Karamu House. It is because of donor investment that Parade the Circle has showered our community with vibrant colors, imaginative forms and sounds, and art for 75,000 people annually for nearly three decades.
International Cleveland Community Day—Come experience Cleveland’s diversity of art and culture every fall at the International Cleveland Community Day, a festival inspired by the richly diverse communities throughout Cleveland. This free event brings together a wide variety of community groups and organizations that will share their rich heritages through performance, music, and table displays of cultural heritage.
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