Udall, Heinrich, Luján Announce $850,000 in Grants to GallupARTS and Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

WASHINGTON—Today, U.S. Senators Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), along with U.S. Representative Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), announced that the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded $100,000 to gallupARTS to support a digital project to increase public engagement and $750,000 to the Georgia O’Keeffe museum for a grant-matching fund to encourage private support for a humanities project. These grants will support New Mexico’s creative economy.

“New Mexico’s unique landscapes and rich history has inspired artists for generations—from trailblazers like Georgia O’Keeffe to young artists supported by organizations like gallupARTS,” said Udall, ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, which oversees NEA and NEH funding.“I fought to increase funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, despite the president’s threats to eliminate funding for them, because these agencies make it possible for artists across the country to help us understand our world, broaden our perspectives and sustain New Mexico’s vibrant creative economy.”  

“From artists whose work reflects centuries of tradition to those breaking new creative ground, our arts community plays an essential role in shaping New Mexico’s culture and fuels our thriving tourism and creative economy. I am proud to support this National Endowment for the Humanities funding to ensure our communities will continue to benefit from our state’s rich arts and culture,” said Heinrich. 

“New Mexico’s incredible arts and culture scene is a crucial economic driver and an integral part of our culture and our communities. I’m proud to support these investments to both create new opportunities and ensure the creativity and beauty within gallupARTS and the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum is available to all New Mexicans and the world,” said Assistant Speaker Luján. 

gallupARTS 

gallupARTS is a community artist nonprofit with a mission devoted to fostering creativity, culture, commerce and quality of life in Gallup and McKinley County through the arts. The organization served over 20,000 McKinley County artists and residents through 14 different programs. gallupARTS offers programming that includes two art galleries, artist talks, art festivals, rotating student art displays, art classes, and public art projects.

The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, in addition to the main campus in Santa Fe, maintains O’Keeffe’s two homes and studios in northern New Mexico, a research center and library, and a variety of collections relating to O’Keeffe and modern art. The museum’s collections of over 3,000 works comprises 140 O’Keeffe oil paintings, nearly 700 drawings, and hundreds of additional works dating from 1901 to 1984. Educational programs at the museum serve more than 7,100 students and adults per year with workshops, lectures, conversations, and classroom activities.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) provide grants to support humanities and arts-related projects in local communities in all 50 states. For Fiscal Year 2020, the NEH and NEA are each it funded at $162.3 million, increasing each endowment by $7.3 million over Fiscal Year 2019.  The Trump administration has proposed eliminating funding for both the NEA and NEH in its annual budget requests to Congress, but Congress has rejected that proposal and instead increased funding for both endowments in each year of the administration.