PMA News: NEH supports Mythmakers with major grant

The Portland Museum of Art is grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for its significant support of Mythmakers: The Art of Winslow Homer and Frederic Remington, slated to open Fall 2020.

Mythmakers is the first project to compare the work of two American artists who have, perhaps more than any other practitioners of their era, shaped this country's perceptions about its landscapes and its peoples. With more than 50 paintings, watercolors, illustrations, and sculptures, Mythmakers is a timely and vital exhibition that explores the ways in which Homer’s late marine seascapes and Remington’s portrayals of the Western plains responded to profound cultural and social changes in the United States in the late 19th century, and how these visions resonate in contemporary society.

The $300,000 grant is one of the 224 humanities projects across the country funded under NEH’s “A More Perfect Union” initiative, which supports efforts that promote a deeper understanding of U.S. history and culture and that advance civics education in preparation for the nation’s 250th anniversary in 2026. 

Mythmakers was one of several major exhibitions highlighted by the NEH in their award announcement in April, “Also in this round of funding are grants to the Portland Museum of Art in Maine for a major traveling exhibition on the art of painter Winslow Homer and painter and sculptor Frederic Remington as a response to fin de siècle cultural changes; to the Museum of the American Revolution for an exhibition on women’s citizenship and voting rights in the Early American Republic; and to the Concord Museum for “At the Center of Revolution,” a new permanent exhibition, education materials, and public programs exploring the history of Concord, Massachusetts, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.”

One of the most anticipated exhibitions in years, Mythmakers: The Art of Winslow Homer and Frederic Remington brings these two American masters together for the first time and represents a vital contribution to our national artistic narrative.

Mythmakers: The Art of Winslow Homer and Frederic Remington is co-organized by the PMA, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, and the Denver Art Museum, and co-curated by Diana Greenwold, Curator of American Art at the PMA. It will be on view at the PMA Fall 2020.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this post do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.