The American Folk Art Museum has received a $1.6 million grant from the Henry Luce Foundation for a national traveling exhibition of masterworks from its collection, the museum announced Thursday.
The exhibition, “Self-Taught Genius: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum,†will feature more than 100 pieces, including drawings, paintings, carvings, quilts and whirligigs.
The show will start at the museum’s New York home across from Lincoln Center next year (May 13 through Aug. 17) before traveling to five other cities over the next three years.
“It’s obviously impossible to display the amount of permanent collection we would like to at the moment in one place,†Dr. Anne-Imelda Radice, the museum’s executive director, said in an interview on Thursday. “I thought this was one way of sharing the richness of our works around the country.â€
The Folk Art Museum closed its midtown Manhattan building in 2011 because of financial difficulties and has been operating at its smaller Lincoln Square location.
The Luce Foundation’s American Art Program, started in 1982, has distributed more than $145 million to about 250 museums, universities and service organizations.
