The Dowse Receives Newly Established Blumhardt Fund

The Dowse Art Museum is delighted to announce it is one of the first recipients of the newly established Blumhardt Fund. The Blumhardt Fund provides a dollar for dollar subsidy to enable participating art museums to acquire works made by outstanding contemporary New Zealand craft/object art practitioners.

"The Blumhardt Foundation’s contribution of $25,000 per annum to our Blumhardt Fund partners ensures at least a $50,000 spend in the craft object art sector. This is a highly strategic move on The Foundation’s part to firstly support outstanding New Zealand contemporary practitioners and to ensure that New Zealanders have access to high quality contemporary craft in public institutions," says Blumhardt Foundation Chair, Philip Clarke.

The Foundation has entered into four year agreements with The Dowse and two other partners which will lead to a $200,000 injection to be spent exclusively on acquisitions by living artists over the four year period. The Foundation believes this will tremendously stimulate the craft/object art sector at a time when many artists have lost opportunities.

The Foundation supports the importance for art museums to be active collectors of contemporary culture.

"The Dowse Art Museum has a reputation for fostering and collecting New Zealand studio craft," says Karl Chitham, Director at The Dowse. "This generous funding from the Blumhardt Foundation towards new acquisitions will allow us to extend our collection to include even more makers and across a greater diversity of disciplines and approaches. This will make an incredible difference to our collection over the coming years and will help grow opportunities for the studio craft sector in Aotearoa."

The Otago Museum, Dunedin and The Suter Gallery, Nelson, were the other recipients of The Blumhardt Fund this year.

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