Collaborative Research Grants from the Getty Foundation

Each year the Getty Foundation awards Collaborative Research Grants to scholarly teams of two or more individuals to pursue interpretive research projects that offer new explanations of art and its history. We strongly encourage collaboration between university and museum-based scholars, and project teams must include at least one art historian. Project funding typically relates to the preparation of a scholarly exhibition or publication, with the emphasis on the early stages of research. Of the ongoing and completed projects in this grant category, several may be of particular interest to members of the Pacific Arts Association.

In 2002, Nicholas Thomas, a well known anthropologist working in visual culture then located at the University of London, led an eight person team in researching the complex history of tattooing in Oceania and its role in cultural exchange between Western and native peoples from the colonial period through the present. The project brought together art historians, anthropologists, artists and historians from New Zealand, Australia, the United States, England and Samoa, and combined library- and museum-based research with fieldwork among artists and tattoo practitioners. More recently in 2005, a smaller team of three art historians, led by Cynthia Bogel of the University of Washington, received support to investigate the transmission of Esoteric Buddhism from China to Japan in the early 9th century through a catalogue of texts, paintings, and ritual implements submitted to the imperial court.

These examples highlight just a few of the possibilities available in this grant category. Successful projects have varied widely in subject and approach, and grant funds are generally applied towards salary replacement, travel and research materials and assistance.

Please contact Nancy Micklewright (nmicklewright@getty.edu) if you would like to submit an application for the November 1 deadline. We are more than happy to review letters of inquiry in advance and provide guidance concerning the proposal's eligibility and competitiveness. In the meantime, we invite you to visit our website to see other examples of successful projects and review our guidelines: www.getty.edu/grants/