Milwaukee Art Museum Receives $300,000 Grant from Mellon Foundation in Support of Art-Related Information

-The Milwaukee Art Museum joins group of museums exploring ways  to connect information for visitors and scholars.-

Milwaukee, Wis. – January 10, 2019 – The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded the Milwaukee Art Museum a grant of $300,000 to support museum efforts in making art information more easily accessible. The grant will be used to assess current information-sharing practices, learn from the industry and create a plan for making a wide range of information available to visitors, scholars and the world.

“One thing we hear from visitors regularly is that they want more information about the art,” said Amanda C. Peterson, Director of Marketing, Communications and Visitor Services. “We have Collection tours, archive materials and works that aren’t currently on view, as well as details documented from education programs, scholarly writing and research from our curatorial team. So there are remarkable opportunities to let people learn and explore for themselves, if we can digitize, categorize, connect and share it all.”

This grant kicks off the Museum’s multiyear information management initiative, expected to take between two and three years to complete. In 2019, the Museum will evaluate ways information can be shared publicly and determine how to most effectively connect Collection information, taking digitization needs, archive materials, visitor and academic uses, as well as industry best practices into consideration.

“What the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has given us is more than just financial support,” said Marcelle Polednik, Donna and Donald Baumgartner Director, Milwaukee Art Museum. “It is the opportunity to be part of a movement across museums to activate our Collection and archives to address the public’s desire to know more, explore for themselves and engage with art in new ways.”

This is the first grant that the Milwaukee Art Museum has received from the Mellon Foundation and the first funding established for a Museum-wide look at content sharing. The Museum is one of only three institutions in the country to be chosen by the Mellon Foundation to pilot this initiative.