UNM Art Museum to receive grant, prints from Helen Frankenthaler Foundation

May 21—The University of New Mexico Art Museum is a recipient of the 2023 Frankenthaler Prints Initiative.

As one of 10 university art museums selected, the UNM Art Museum will receive a group of Helen Frankenthaler prints and a one-time grant of $25,000 to develop a project or program for the study, presentation and interpretation of the editions. These resources will be used to support student education in the visual arts and art history.

Grantees are selected based on demonstrated commitments to prints as significant collection areas and teaching tools, according to Elizabeth Smith, executive director of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation.

"This gift to the University of New Mexico Art Museum acknowledges the museum's distinguished history of collecting prints, photographs and works on paper. It dramatically enriches the museum and will provide our student body and faculty with access to one of the great American artists of the 20th century," said Arif Khan, UNM Art Museum director.

This year marks the second phase of the Frankenthaler Prints Initiative. The first cycle was launched in 2018 by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation to enrich academic institutions' collections and resources while promoting scholarly research on Frankenthaler's contributions to the field of printmaking.