Terra Foundation for American Art

Discovering hidden histories: Spreadsheets, Datasets, and other Unfancy Digital Methods

Chicago Avant-Garde:
An Interview with Curator
Liesl Olson

Devour the Land:
An Interview with Curator Makeda Djata Best

New School:
Romi Crawford Shares the Black Arts Movement School Modality with the Next Generation

Women in Abstraction:
An Interview with Curator Christine Macel

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The Terra Foundation is dedicated to fostering exploration, understanding, and enjoyment of the visual arts of the US for national and international audiences.

Our grant program, art collection, and initiatives encourage dialogue among many voices on American art.

Grant & Fellowship Opportunities

Announcements & Deadlines

Grants Awarded March 2022

The Terra Foundation awarded 35 grants in March, amounting to a total of over $2.3 million, to support projects that encourage collaborative practices between Chicago-based arts and cultural organizations, exhibitions on American art worldwide, and new strategic initiatives focused on expanding narratives of American art.
Read More
Art Design Chicago Exhibition Grants: Letters of Inquiry Due August 3, 2022

Art Design Chicago is a platform for collaboration that fosters the investigation and elevation of Chicago’s rich visual art and design histories and creative communities.
Apply Now

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Terra Foundation Collection

The Terra Foundation collection of American art includes over 750 paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, and sculptures by 242 artists.

Painting of a boy and a cow, with buildings in the background and a black sky.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Boy with Cow, 1921

An impressionist painting of a hillside. The foreground depicts a green and brown hillside, and a small village and trees is in the background.

Theodore Robinson, From the Hill, Giverny, c. 1889–92

Impressionist paining of a woman and a girl in a small boat leaning over the side to look into the water. Two ducks are floating on the multicolored blue water.

Mary Cassatt, Summertime, 1894

Landscape painting of a river flowing through a field with haystacks dotting the field. A dark, gray cloud is at the top of the painting over a light blue sky.

Martin Johnson Heade, Newburyport Marshes: Approaching Storm, c. 1871

Painting of a group of people having a picnic in a clearing in the forest.

Lilly Martin Spencer, The Home of the Red, White, and Blue, c. 1867–68

Painting of letters, newspapers, notebook, a feather, stamp, and other memorabilia held to a brown bulletin board by pinned, thin red tape.

John Frederick Peto, Old Time Letter Rack, 1894

Painting of a red brick building with the word "BAR-B-QUE" on a sign above the doorway. Black individuals are seated at a counter seen inside the open door and look into an open window where a figure with a tall, white chefs hat is seen in front of meat roasting on four rotisseries.

Jacob Lawrence, Bar-b-que, 1942

Impressionist painting of a street scene in Paris. Two individuals and a dog are in the foreground, and a domed building is in the background. The sky is gray and cloudy.

Henry Ossawa Tanner, Les Invalides, Paris, 1896

View the Collection Loans and Permissions

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Learn about grant opportunities, collection highlights, and more.

News

Four headshots arranged in a square.

Terra Foundation adds Amina Dickerson, Eric T. McKissack, Ravi Saligram and Amanda Williams to Board of Directors

April 27, 2022

Painting that is primarily red vertical marking painted over an image underneath, which appears only as blue, yellow, and green marks beneath the red.

Terra Foundation Awards $2.5 Million to US Arts & Culture Organizations for Permanent Collection Projects

May 4, 2021

Clare Muñana and Huey Copeland

Terra Foundation Adds Huey Copeland and Clare Muñana to Board of Directors

December 8, 2020