The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is offering the American Masterpieces: Visual Arts Touring Grant to support major visual arts exhibitions. This grant is for touring high-quality art to communities nationwide.

• Meet the Arts Endowment’s "Legal Requirements," including nonprofit, tax-exempt status, as detailed in the FY 2010 Grants for Arts Projects guidelines, at the time of application.
• Have a three-year history of programming prior to the application deadline.
• Have submitted acceptable Final Report packages by the due date(s) for all Arts Endowment award(s) previously received.

For touring exhibitions that involve collections from multiple organizations, one organization that meets the eligibility requirements above must act as the official applicant, submit the application, and assume full responsibility for the grant.

Organizations are limited to one American Masterpieces: Visual Arts Touring application per year.

An application in response to this announcement does not preclude an organization from applying under other Arts Endowment funding opportunities including Grants for Arts Projects. In each case, the request must be for a distinctly different project.

The designated fifty state and six jurisdictional arts agencies (SAAs) and their regional arts organizations (RAOs) are not eligible to apply under the American Masterpieces: Visual Arts Touring guidelines.

American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius is a major initiative to acquaint Americans with the best of their cultural and artistic legacy. Through American Masterpieces, the National Endowment for the Arts will sponsor performances, exhibitions, tours, and educational programs across all art forms that will reach large and small communities in all 50 states.

This component of American Masterpieces will celebrate the extraordinary and rich evolution of the visual arts in the United States. Through the creation and touring of major exhibitions, art of the highest quality will be experienced by Americans in communities across the nation.

Exhibitions may focus on schools, movements, traditions, subject areas, and themes that include but are not limited to:

• The Hudson River School
• American Impressionism
• Native American Art
• American Masterworks from Unique Collections including private collections
• Aspects of American Art Post-1945 to the Present
• Art of the W.P.A.
• Latino Art
• The Portrait in America
• American Naïve Art
• African American Art
• American Photographers and Photography
• American Decorative Arts
• The Art of the American West
• Industrial Design
• Architecture
• Costume and Textiles
• Folk Arts

The tour of an existing exhibition is eligible.

Exhibitions must be:

• Scaled so they can be shown in small and mid-sized exhibiting institutions.
• Shown for a period of 8-12 weeks at 2-5 venues which may include the organizing institution. The number of venues should be appropriate to the nature of the works on view.
• Accompanied by related educational and interpretive components including brochures and catalogues. Educational material for children and youth must ensure the application of national or state arts education standards.