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Art Award Philanthropic Initiative 2025 Rabkin Prize Winners Announced
September 2025
The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, where András Szántó serves as Advisor, has announced the eight recipients of the 2025 Rabkin Prize, which celebrates the creative and intellectual contributions of today’s arts writers with an unrestricted $50,000 award. This year’s winners are Tempestt Hazel, co-founder of Sixty Inches from Center; Jessica Lynne, writer, critic and co-founder of ARTS.BLACK; Nicole Martinez, critic and deputy director of Fountainhead Arts; Brandy McDonnell, features writer for The Oklahoman; America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), writer and publishing editor of First American Art Magazine; Eva Recinos, an arts and culture journalist; Paul Chaat Smith (Comanche Nation), author, essayist, and curator; and J Wortham, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine.
Philanthropic Initiative Video & Audio Art Classes for Older Adults: Video with Jane Fonda Supported by E.A. Michelson Philanthropy
December 2024
András Szántó LLC has been working for the past three years with E.A. Michelson Philanthropy on advancing opportunities for older Americans to participate in arts activities in art museums. The foundation has supported a video about the benefits of art classes for older adults which aired on December 1, 2024 on CBS Sunday morning. Produced by Smartypants Pictures, and featuring Jane Fonda and aging expert Ashton Applewhite, the film highlights the role of arts in improving quality of life and addressing increasing loneliness among older adults. Read More call_made
Museum Initiative Philanthropic Initiative Video & Audio Creative Aging: Life Doesn’t Stop
March 2024
In this initiative from E.A. Michelson Philanthropy, learn about how art museums across the United States are creating new opportunities for older adults to create, find purpose and build community. Read More call_made
Article Philanthropic Initiative The Next Urgent-Ism: Museums Must Change Their Ageist Ways
January 2024
Museums in the US and beyond are neglecting members of a rapidly expanding demographic who also historically have been the sector’s biggest donors. Read Andras Szanto’s and Brian’s Kennedy Op Ed in the Arts Newspaper, inspired by their keynote presentation for the Vitality Arts Project for Art Museums 2023 Gathering in Minneapolis. Read More call_made
Article Philanthropic Initiative Older Americans Rarely have access to Arts Education. This funder is working to change that.
January 2023
Inside Philanthropy has published an article on E. A. Michelson Philanthropy’s Vitality Arts program, which funds museums and arts education organizations providing individuals “55 and better” with multi-session, skills-based arts workshops. In mid-January, and with the assistance of ASLLC in collaboration with Brian Kennedy Arts Consulting, the program awarded $3 million in new grants to 16 art museums across the country. Read More call_made
Philanthropic Initiative E. A. Michelson Philanthropy Announces Second round of Vitality Arts Grants
January 2023
Adding sixteen additional museums nationwide to a previously awarded nine museum grants of up to $250 thousand, E. A. Michelson Philanthropies in January 2023 significantly expanded the number of museums providing participatory arts programming for people 55 and over and undertaking anti-ageism initiatives. Part of a comprehensive philanthropic strategy, the grants respond to seismic demographic shifts in the US, which museums have begun to address. Read More call_made
Article Philanthropic Initiative One Foundation Is Giving Top U.S. Museums Millions of Dollars to Address a Critical Blind Spot: Programming for Older Adults
July 2022
Artnet News has published an article on the Vitality Arts Project for Art Museums, an initiative by the E.A. Michelson Philanthropy and coordinated by ASLCC, which “gives more than $2 million over 18 months to nine major museums in an effort to support “creative aging” programs for visitors 55 and above.” Read More call_made
Philanthropic Initiative Publications Untapped Opportunity: Older Americans & the Arts
June 2022
“The corrosive ageism that permeates our culture leads us to see older people as “other,” but it turns out that older and younger adults want the same things from life: we all have a deep desire to have fun, to connect meaningfully with others, to create and to learn.” A milestone in the work between E. Michelson Philathropies and ASLLC, this special report is a collaboration between LaPlaca Cohen and Slover Linett Audience Research, which sheds light on older generations’ distinct preferences and behaviors to provide relevant insights for cultural engagement. Read the report here. Read More call_made
Philanthropic Initiative The Culture Lead Now Live
May 2022
This May, Culture Lead, a project on which ASLLC provided guidance, launched with the aim to help make action against Climate Change the social norm across all cultural institutions. The vision of Culture Lead is a net zero world where culture has created impact, both in zeroing institutional emissions, and in inspiring other institutions and visitors to make the same choice.
Art Award Philanthropic Initiative Frankenthaler Climate Art Awards Winners Announced
April 2022
Presented by Asia Society and the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation in collaboration with the Hirshhorn Museum, National Gallery of Art, Phillips Collection, and Environmental Defense Fund, the Climate Art Awards will be presented to Maurício Chades (School of the Art Institute of Chicago), Douglas Tolman (University of Utah), and Alexa Velez (Washington University in St. Louis) on April 2 in Washington, D.C.
Article Philanthropic Initiative “Art Institutions Aren’t Doing Enough to Lead on Climate Change. Here’s How the Industry Should Rethink Its Responsibility”
January 2022
In this Op-Ed for Artnet News, co-authors András Szántó and Orville Schell weigh some of the art world’s most environmentally harmful practices and explore how the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation is taking one key step with the launch of the Climate Art Awards. Read More call_made
Art Award Philanthropic Initiative Open Call for Artists: Announcing the Frankenthaler Climate Art Awards
December 2021
Responding to the urgency of accelerating climate change, Asia Society and the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation are launching the Frankenthaler Climate Art Awards, organized in collaboration with the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, National Gallery of Art, and The Phillips Collection and with support from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Environmental Defense Fund. Selected via an online open call launching on January 10, 2022, three winning artists will each receive $15,000 and be honored at an event in Washington, D.C. in April 2022. Read More call_made