Pew Center for Arts and Heritage

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Our Grantmaking

Art and access to it are essential to the fabric of civic life. As a multidisciplinary grantmaker dedicated to fostering a vibrant and diverse cultural ecology in the Philadelphia region, the Center annually awards grants to organizations and artists, whose imaginative programs, events, and artistic work inspire audiences and make Philadelphia a thriving hub for culture.

Meet Our 2024 Grantees

Hear from some of the region’s creative thinkers and makers as they tell us about the vital importance of the arts in civic life and the work they’ll undertake with funding from the Center. 

See the Full List of Grantees

Project Grants

Project grants in two funding areas, Performance and Exhibitions & Public Interpretation, support a spectrum of public programs that engage broad and varied publics in theaters, performing arts venues, museums, galleries, civic sites, community spaces, and neighborhoods.

Coming Up
Music director Madeline Benson and composer Daniel Lazour at a developmental workshop for Night Side Songs, Northwestern University.  Night Side Songs

Philadelphia Theatre Company

Philadelphia Theatre Company’s premiere of the Lazour brothers’ new musical explores the intimacy of illness and caregiving, informed by interviews with patients, doctors, and hospital staff in Philadelphia and elsewhere.

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Coming Up
Carl Cheng/John Doe Co., Erosion Machine No. 4, 1969; plexiglass, metal racks and fittings, plastic, water pump, LED lights, black light, pebbles, erosion rocks, wood base; 15" x 25" x 9". Photo by Jeff McClane, courtesy of Carl Cheng and Philip Martin Galllery. The Institute of Contemporary Art presents an exhibition of Cheng's work. Carl Cheng: Nature Never Loses

Institute of Contemporary Art

A survey of Carl Cheng’s six-decade career prompts a restoration and reimagining of the Los Angeles-based artist’s cross-disciplinary works from the 1960s to the present.

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Happening Now
Colin Campbell Cooper Jr., View of the Interior of Library Hall on Fifth Street, 1879, watercolor. Image courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia. Beyond Glass Cases

Library Company of Philadelphia

New approaches to exhibition design and historical interpretation consider public engagement with controversial artifacts held in the Library Company’s collection that reflect American society and culture from the 17th through the 19th century.

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Atwater Kent Collection material on display at the Philadelphia History Museum, c. 2018. Drexel University’s Reshaping Historical Narratives through the Atwater Kent Collection presents overlooked artifacts and narratives from the collection. Photo courtesy of Drexel University.
Music director Madeline Benson and composer Daniel Lazour at a developmental workshop for Night Side Songs, Northwestern University. 
A hot mid-morning lunch in school, Ashwood Plantations, South Carolina, 1939. Science History Institute’s Lunchtime examines the history and contemporary implications of the US School Lunch Program. Photo from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Carl Cheng/John Doe Co., Erosion Machine No. 4, 1969; plexiglass, metal racks and fittings, plastic, water pump, LED lights, black light, pebbles, erosion rocks, wood base; 15" x 25" x 9". Photo by Jeff McClane, courtesy of Carl Cheng and Philip Martin Galllery. The Institute of Contemporary Art presents an exhibition of Cheng's work.
Colin Campbell Cooper Jr., View of the Interior of Library Hall on Fifth Street, 1879, watercolor. Image courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia.

Pew Fellowships in the Arts

Pew Fellowships provide direct financial support through unrestricted grants to distinctive artists of all disciplines who live and work in our region.

Meet Our 2024 Fellows
Mikel Patrick Avery, 2024 Pew Fellow. Photo by Travis B.
Mikel Patrick Avery
  • Music
  • Interdisciplinary
Bettina Escauriza, 2024 Pew Fellow. Self-portrait, courtesy of the artist.
Bettina Escauriza
  • Film & Media
Ralph Lemon, 2024 Pew Fellow. Photo courtesy of MacArthur Foundation.
Ralph Lemon
  • Interdisciplinary
  • Dance
Michelle Lopez, 2024 Pew Fellow. 
Michelle Lopez
  • Visual Art
  • Sculpture
Zac Manuel, 2024 Pew Fellow. Photo by Hennen Payne.
Zac Manuel
  • Film & Media
Pew Fellow Shavon Norris in Team Sunshine's The Sincerity Project #4, 2021. Norris served as a guest director for the fourth iteration of the project. Photo by Johanna Austin. 
Shavon Norris
  • Theater
  • Dance
Raúl Romero, 2024 Pew Fellow. Self-portrait, courtesy of the artist.
Raúl Romero
  • Interdisciplinary
Tyshawn Sorey, 2024 Pew Fellow. Photo by Ogata.
Tyshawn Sorey
  • Music
Chad E. Taylor, 2024 Pew Fellow. Photo by Johannes Starmuhle.
Chad E. Taylor
  • Music
Stewart Thorndike, 2024 Pew Fellow. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Stewart Thorndike
  • Film & Media
Tshay, 2024 Pew Fellow. Photo by Pew Fellow Naomieh Jovin.
Tshay
  • Film & Media
  • Photography
Rebecca Wright, 2024 Pew Fellow. Photo by Taj Rauch. 
Rebecca Wright
  • Theater
Ralph Lemon, 2024 Pew Fellow. Photo courtesy of MacArthur Foundation.

“I contemplate what it is I can't do, what's not possible, in this ongoing conversation I have with the locus of my multivalent practice, where I begin, the body—a material as place, memory, culture, and vehicle for cultural language.”

— Ralph Lemon, Interdisciplinary artist, writer, and choreographer
Michelle Lopez, 2024 Pew Fellow. 

“As a maker, I believe the manipulation of objects and space is a wondrous alchemy, one that can transform perception.”

— Michelle Lopez, Sculptor and installation artist
Raúl Romero, 2024 Pew Fellow. Self-portrait, courtesy of the artist.

“Working with sound, because of its ability to cross so many barriers, I can unleash hidden phenomenological possibilities.”

— Raúl Romero, Sound and installation artist

Grantmaking Impact

$192,808,494

Total grant dollars awarded

1,988

Total number of grants in the Center's history

412

Total number of Pew Fellowships for artists