Arts and Culture

Arts and Culture celebrates the transcendent power of the arts to challenge, activate, and nourish the human spirit. We support exceptional creative practice, scholarship, and conservation of arts and culture, while nurturing a representative and robust arts and culture ecosystem. 

Our program works with artists, curators, conservators, scholars, and organizations to ensure equitable access to excellent arts and cultural experiences. Our goal is to add complexity and justice to our understanding of the world, and to foster societies that value artists as the chroniclers of our humanity.

In short, we work to place the arts and artists at the center of thriving, healthy communities.

How do we mindfully uncover and memorialize erased histories? If the American landscape is a text, whose story are we reading?

A cornerstone of Southern theater celebrates 50 years of art and community advocacy.

A constellation of Mellon-supported fellowship programs address a growing need for diversity among cultural heritage professionals.

ALL ARTS—a revolutionary public media broadcast channel and streaming platform—and enhanced coverage on PBS NewsHour connect diverse audiences across America to the arts.

Regional arts and cultural organizations in the fields of conservation, dance, and theater are able to work toward long-term capacity goals with the help of Mellon grants.

Americans for the Arts President and CEO Robert L. Lynch on how an online tool highlights the arts’ impact on health, community development, and other sectors of society, making the case for increased arts activity and funding.

On the release of "Creative Industries: Business & Employment in the Arts," Randy Cohen, Vice President of Research and Policy at Americans for the Arts, writes about how new research documents the size and scope of the nation’s arts establishments and jobs—and makes the case for increased investment in the arts.

Northwestern University performance studies professor and department chair Ramón H. Rivera-Servera has spearheaded an innovative outreach initiative to assist Puerto Rican artists in the aftermath of last fall’s devastating hurricanes. Article by Kerry Trotter and Cara Lockwood, originally appearing in Dialogue, a publication of Northwestern University.

Established in 2012, the National Playwright Residency Program seeks to empower playwrights by embedding them in producing theaters. Here, a summary of Helicon Collaborative’s Report on the program’s impact.

The Mellon Undergraduate Curatorial Fellowship program is designed to diversify the curatorial ranks in museums across America.

A Mellon Foundation-supported study by the American Alliance of Museums and Oxford Economics highlights the need for a greater understanding of the full scope of how museums benefit our lives and the economy.

“Conservation in the 21st century can no longer just be about objects,” says Balachandran. “Conservation also has to be about the people whose lives are inscribed on them.”

"Relegating arts support to the private sector alone would leave millions of people behind," writes National Assembly of State Arts Agencies CEO Pam Breaux.

Lyric Opera of Chicago brings voices of the community to the stage.

SFMOMA’s Artist Initiative takes a mutually reinforcing approach to curating, conserving and displaying contemporary works.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s (OSF) “American Revolutions” project is the nonprofit regional theater company’s biggest undertaking since was founded in 1935. More than 100 playwrights, historians, and partner institutions are collaborating on the creation of 37 plays, each about a critical moment of change and importance in American history.