The Terra Foundation for American Art provides opportunities for interaction with original works of American art for the enjoyment of diverse audiences. It supports exhibitions at its museum in France, the Musée d’Art Américain Giverny, and has a selection of artworks from its collection on display at the Art Institute of Chicago. The foundation also lends objects from its collection to national and international exhibitions that advance scholarship in and the interpretation of American art. To make loan inquiries, please review the foundation’s loan request procedures. In addition, the Terra Foundation recently announced the expansion of its grant program, which includes support for exhibitions that increase the understanding and enjoyment of American art (recent exhibition grants). The foundation has a particular interest in exhibitions with venues that are outside the United States or in its hometown of Chicago, but also makes grants to exhibitions that encompass multi-national collaboration or that interpret American art within a global context. Please see Exhibition Program Guidelines for more information. View related calendar items

Musée d’Art Américain Giverny A selection of the foundation’s artworks is on view between April 1 and October 31 each year at the Musée d’Art Américain Giverny, the French museum operated by the Terra Foundation for the Arts. The museum displays the collection in thematic exhibitions on a variety of topics, often accompanied by a publication. The museum is located at 99 rue Claude Monet, 27620 Giverny, France. Visit www.maag.org for current and upcoming exhibition information.

The Art Institute of Chicago Since April 2005, approximately fifty paintings from the foundation’s collection have been on loan to the Department of American Art at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC). The collections of the Terra and the Art Institute are located in a new suite of galleries, and together provide one of the nation’s most comprehensive presentations of American art. The foundation’s collection of American works on paper are housed in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Art Institute. The Art Institute is located at 111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, 60603. Appointments to view works on paper from the Terra collection may be made by calling 312 443 3660 or by emailing . Paintings on view at the AIC

Other Venues Works in the collection are also featured in these exhibitions:

Impressionist Giverny: American Painters in France, 1885-1915, Selections from the Terra Foundation for American Art
Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut, May 3–July 27, 2008
Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, New York, August 23, 2008–January 3, 2008

This exhibition, organized by the Terra Foundation for American Art and the Musée d'Art Américain Giverny is comprised of over fifty works from the Terra collection. The exhibition studies the international phenomenon of the Giverny artist community over a thirty year period, within the context of rural artists’ colonies.

At Leisure: American Paintings
Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 2008

This exhibition, organized by the Terra Foundation for American Art and the Musée d’Art Américian Giverny, uses sixty paintings, drawings and prints from the Terra collection to illustrate one of the greatest inventions of the modern era: leisure. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the United States knew an unprecedented economic development and industrialization. However, painters of this period seemed to favor the representations of leisure. Responding to the patrons’ demands, they depicted a “gilded age” of American society devoted to perpetual entertainment. Images of women sewing peacefully and children playing in everlasting flowered gardens reflected a taste for the so-called “genre painting”. This new iconography was directly linked to the growth of an upper middle-class, to which artists belonged or identified themselves.

Portrait of a Lady: American Paintings and Photographs in France, 1870–1915
Musée d’Art Américain Giverny, Giverny, France, April 1–July 14, 2008
Musée des Beaux-arts de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France, September 25, 2008–January 5, 2009

This exhibition, organized by the Terra Foundation for American Art and Musée d'Art Américain Giverny in collaboration with the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, features approximately 60 paintings, drawings, prints, and photographs of women at the turn of the last century drawn primarily from French public collections. These paintings were produced by celebrated American artists such as John White Alexander, Thomas Eakins, William T. Dannat or John Singer Sargent and photographs taken by Americans Gertrude Käsebier, George Henry Seeley, Edward Steichen and Clarence H. White. They demonstrate a decorative elegance that relates to the renewal of high society portraiture during this period. Works from the Terra collection from this same historic period are included to enrich and complete the exhibition.