To support renovation of the Ancient Art exhibition galleries and endowment fora curatorial position in Ancient Art.

To increase endowment which will help expand public humanities programs and to establish a broader fund-raising base within the community.

The City of Baltimore is rich in cultural and humanities institutions which, like the Walters Art Museum have a history of serving youth through field trips, outreach programs, hands-on role play activities, guided tours, and access to content through digital resources. While cultural institutions make every effort to facilitate connections between classroom learning and their content, we need to devise a vehicle for cultural institutions to be a part of the humanities curriculum not only as enrichment but as a meaningful, culturally relevant, and integral part of school-day learning. With funding from the NEH, the Walters will bring together other institutions, school and education representatives, as well as funders to will create an intentional, strategic, holistic plan that will “launch new forms of collaboration towards the goal of restoring and perhaps enhancing meaningful student exposure to humanities instruction.” NEH funding will allow cultural organizations to come together for a series of integrated conversations to determine how to implement the humanities as a core component of student learning, ultimately resulting in changes to school curricula. Funding will support the following activities: a multi-day symposium of diverse stakeholders; presentation of case studies; ongoing working groups; presentations of refined models; and recommendations for realistic alignment of the resources of the cultural institutions with the humanities curriculum. At the conclusion of the planning grant period, we intend to present to the NEH, as well as other local funders, a framework for the robust integration of the cultural institutions in the humanities content in Baltimore City Public Schools.  

Planning for a traveling exhibition, a website, lecture series, a catalog, and educational and public programs examining the presence of Africans in the art of Renaissance Europe.

The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland requests support from the National Endowment for the Humanities for the planning of the international loan exhibition provisionally titled Face to Face: The African Presence in Renaissance Europe. NEH Grant funds are requested to fund focus groups, exhibition advisory committee meeting travel, curatorial travel related to loans and contributions, and an exhibition research assistant position. To reveal the African presence in Renaissance Europe, the exhibition will examine the geographical, historical and social conditions affecting Africans in Europe. It will then offer face to face encounters with the actual individuals affected by these factors -- from slaves to rulers - through the medium of great Renaissance portraiture.

Implementation for a traveling exhibition exploring the art and visual culture of Ethiopia as a geographic crossroads from antiquity to the present, including public programs and a catalog.

This project supports "Ethiopia at the Crossroads," a landmark international loan exhibition that celebrates the artistic traditions of Ethiopia from antiquity to the present. Opening at the Walters Art Museum in Fall 2024, this exhibition will explore the cultural significance and humanistic legacy of Ethiopia, from the earliest prehistoric origins through today. This will be the first major art exhibition in America to examine Ethiopian art in a global context by examining how Ethiopia embodies the idea of "crossroads" geographically, historically, and culturally. Accompanied by interpretive experiences in the galleries, contemporary art installations, a dynamic suite of public programs, and a field-leading scholarly publication, "Ethiopia at the Crossroads" will enrich scholars and the public alike with a greater understanding of the complex exchange of visual culture between Ethiopia and the world.

To support an interpretive program around the exhibit "Afro-American Arts from the Suriname Rain Forest," including the presentation of music and dance by Suriname Maroons.

To support the educational component of the exhibition at the Walters Gallery of 11 rare-Agnaiwnii illuminated manuscripts produced between the 10th and 17th centuries. The educational aids include 2 microfilm readers, visual aids such as maps, a 12 min. slide presentation, 24- color transparencies, enlargements, literary excerpts, and an exhibition Picture Book - An Introduction to Armenian Manuscript Illuminations.

To support the implementation of a traveling temporary exhibition consisting of 300 objects from archaeological sites and museums in Syria that explore the region's role as a cultural crossroads from prehistoric times through the Islamic Period.

To support the implementation of a temporary exhibition that reunites four silver "hoards" that consist of a single silver treasure of sixth century Byzantine art. Through these artifacts the exhibition explores aspects of Byzantine society -- religion and economic history -- and research methods.

To support the conservation treatment for, and implementation of, an exhibitionand catalogue devoted to the Book of Hours, a major type of illuminated manu- script of the late medieval and Renaissance periods.

To support the permanent installation of the museum's collections of Asian art.

To support a traveling exhibition, a catalog, and public programs on 17th-century Dutch painting in Utrecht.

Reinstallation of the permanent collection of medieval art, including a website, educational and public programs, and a catalog.

To support the enhancement of environmental, fire, and security systems for thegallery's ancient, medieval, and 19th-century material culture collections.

Cataloging and digitizing 236 Islamic illuminated manuscripts, which contain 53,000 folios that date from the 9th to the 19th centuries. Images and catalog data would be freely accessible via the museum's Web site and available through a portal maintained by Johns Hopkins University.

Islamic Manuscripts of the Walters Art Museum: A Digital Resource will turn the illuminated and illustrated Islamic manuscripts of the museum, which are currently inaccessible to all but a tiny minority, into the Islamic Digital Resource (IDR), aiding in their preservation, and making them accessible. WAM?s collection of 236 medieval Islamic manuscripts remains underused both by the public and by scholars in the field, at least in part because the codices have never been catalogued. Current technology now allows for the possibility of cataloguing these books, generating digital images of the bindings of these manuscripts, and the 53,000 folios contained within them, and combining this information to create searchable digital surrogates. Through IDR we expect to open these closed books to all, and to provide different audiences with the information and the interfaces that they will need to mine this invaluable resource.

Enhanced cataloging, digitization, and creation of online access to 112 Flemish manuscripts (45,000 pages of text and over 3,000 pages of illumination) from northeastern France and Belgium from the 13th to the 16th centuries.

"Imaging the Hours," a three year project to preserve and make available cataloged digital surrogates of 112 manuscripts from the Walters Art Museum's world-famous collection. Approximately 45,000 pages of ancient text and over 3,000 pages of superb medieval illuminated images from Northeastern France and Belgium will be digitally captured and documented.

To complete a catalogue of the 588 Western manuscripts within 3 1/2 years. These illuminated manuscripts represent the output of leading manuscript centers throughout Europe and comprise all types of religious service-books as well as several hundred didactic, historical, and literary texts. The manuscripts will also undergo conservation efforts.

To support the preparation of Volume 3 of a four-volume catalogue of early western European illuminated manuscripts in the collection of the Walters Art Gallery.

To continue excavations at the Sanctuary of Apollo Hylates in Cyprus.

To support excavation in the Archaic Precinct of the Sanctuary of Apollo Hylates at Kourion, Cyprus, concentrating on a cache of terracotta figurines from the 7th-4th centuries B.C.

To support an international conference on ecclesiastical silver plate in early Byzantium. The approach of the conference will be interdisciplinary, examiningnot only the religious meaning of the silver plate, but its significance in therealms of art, commerce, finance, and trade.