TERRA FOUNDATION FOR AMERICAN ART
The Terra Foundation for American Art supports individuals, organisations and communities to promote more expansive and diverse conceptions of American art. Created in 1978 and based in Chicago, with a branch in Paris, its patronage programme, its collection and its initiatives aim to further cross-cultural dialogue on American art at local, national and international level.
The Terra Foundation for American Art joined forces with the musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in 2014 through its support for the Plains Indians exhibition, then in 2016 by supporting the cultural programme (international symposium, readings, conferences) in conjunction with the exhibition The Color Line: African-American Artists and Segregation.
In 2020, the Terra Foundation for American Art supported the museum with its major research project CRoyAN on the French Royal Collections from North America. The museum owns 234 works from today's Canada and the United States, collected between 1650 and 1850, and incorporated into royal, and later national, French collections. A priceless source of knowledge on the indigenous peoples of the Great Plains, the Great Lakes, and their relationship with Europeans. The CRoyAN research project combines the historical study of the collection, the material analysis of the objects, conservation-restoration interventions and collaboration with Native American and First Nations specialists. The interdisciplinary project aims to shed new light on the provenance and context of the objects, on the value and function attributed to these objects in the past and today by North American communities, and to ensure their transmission to futures generations.
Thanks to the support of the Terra Foundation for American Art, a research grant on Native American Art has been awarded to anthropologist Nikolaus Stolle. A Visiting Scholar at the Department of Research and Education at the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac from September 2020 to September 2021, his work will contribute to the CRoyAN research project on the royal collections from North America conserved in France.
In 2023, the Terra Foundation for American Art supported the organisation of a workshop in Paris with American Indian partners from the Plains region.