The Columbus Museum of Art receives $1 million for new fellowship program

The Columbus Museum of Art on Wednesday announced that the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation has permanently endowed a $1 million gift to the organization to support a rotating two-year fellowship for emerging museum professionals.

This rotating fellowship, named the Lichtenstein Foundation Curatorial Fellowship for Diversity and Inclusion in the Arts, is the latest outcome of a partnership between the museum and the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation.

The new program is designed to engage emerging museum professionals committed to representing diversity, inclusion, equity and access in the field, according to a press release. 

“Our newly endowed fellowship program at the Columbus Museum of Art recognizes the importance of this museum and the special opportunities it can provide," said Dorothy Lichtenstein, president of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. "We appreciate this creative partnership with CMA and we are confident they will exceed even their own ambitious goals.”

The foundation's endowment follows a 2017 gift of $300,000 to fund the museum’s current Roy Lichtenstein Curatorial Fellowship. The existing fellowship program will continue through 2025, at which point the endowed position will become active.

Given the challenges aspiring museum professionals face when trying to get their start in the industry, as well those mid-size museums have with maintaining workers in curatorial department roles, the importance of the program has magnified, said Nannette Maciejunes, executive director and CEO of the Columbus Museum of Art.

“The pathway into a curatorial career is beset with structural inequities,” Maciejunes said. “This transformative gift supports the museum’s commitment to having the appropriate institutional culture, truths and trust to address our strategic principles of inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility. We need to invite a broader mix of people to the table making decisions about museums and cultural institutions.”

The fellowship will simultaneously help museums in regional urban centers and provide curatorial experience for post-graduate students, according to the press release.

“We know that everything we do to change the museum from inside is key to its ability to affect positive change outside,” said Tyler Cann, the museum’s director of exhibitions and Pizzuti Family curator of contemporary art, “We believe that museums can help mend the fabric of our shared culture, but for that to happen, different and diverse voices need to be heard."

– The Columbus Dispatch