After nearly a year of a fraction of normal revenue, Atlanta’s premier art museum the High Museum of Art has received a $3.1 million grant from the Sara Giles Moore Foundation. The grant will go towards an assessment of the museum’s collection and to fund any necessary care needed for its art.
Atlanta’s High Museum
“As an institution, we must balance our mission to exhibit the incredible works in our holdings with the mandate to responsibly provide for their preservation,” said Rand Suffolk, the High’s Nancy and Holcombe T. Green, Jr., director. “We’re incredibly grateful to The Sara Giles Moore Foundation for this generous grant, which is at once a watershed event for the Museum and an empowering investment in the stewardship of our community’s cultural heritage.”
The grant is among the largest the museum has ever received, with funding allocated over a period of six years. The museum will be able to develop a long-term collection care plan and, with money being fungible, money saved in one area means it can be spent in another, with the museum now able to offer expanded programming and increase awareness of art conservation.
“In her lifetime, Sara Moore was a dedicated supporter of the High Museum, where she served on the Board for many years,” said Sara Hehir, The Sara Giles Moore Foundation board chair. “The Foundation has always aimed to honor Mrs. Moore’s commitment to the Museum through grants for exhibition support, the acquisition of ‘A Reading (or Woman in Windsor Chair)’ by Thomas Wilmer Dewing, and conservation and treatment of the American art collection. The Sara Giles Moore Foundation is thrilled to celebrate Mrs. Moore’s generosity and commitment to the long-term success of the High Museum by supporting this comprehensive collections care, treatment and education effort.”
With the High Museum’s more than 18,000 works in its collection, the project will be complete in scope and span seven curatorial departments — African art, American art, decorative arts and design, European art, folk and self-taught art, modern and contemporary art, and photography, representing a range of media and cultures. Conservators and curators will be periodically presenting on their efforts through talks and tours, and the six-year endeavor will be documented on the High’s website. The work will be part of a cap on the High’s ongoing preservation plan, begun with a major renovation in 2003 and another in 2018.
Sara Giles Moore was an active member of the arts community in Atlanta until she passed away in 2003. A native of Milledgeville, she was involved with not only the High Museum but also the Forward Arts Foundation in Atlanta and was on the Board of Directors of the Piedmont Hospital Foundation. She served on the board at the High for many years and the museum even named a gallery in honor of her and her late husband, O. Ray Moore. Through the foundation, her commitment continues to impact Atlanta.
