FORT WORTH, TX.- The Amon Carter Museum announced that it has recently received grants totaling more than $150,000 from The Alcon Foundation — the philanthropic interest of Alcon Inc. (NYSE: ACL) — and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

The Alcon Foundation is generously sponsoring the museum’s popular quarterly Family Fundays. These free events offer parents and children hands-on art projects, book readings and interactive tours, connecting them with artworks at the Amon Carter Museum.

“At Alcon, we believe programs such as the Carter’s Family Fundays provide a great educational experience for the whole family and make our community a more vibrant place to live,” says Sara Woodward, director, corporate humanitarian and community services and president of The Alcon Foundation.

The next Family Funday is scheduled for Sunday, August 9, with the theme What a Wonderful World. Artworks by African-American artists in The Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African-American Art: Works on Paper exhibition and the Carter’s permanent collection will be featured.

In addition, the NEA has awarded the museum two grants: an Access to Artistic Excellence grant, which will support the museum’s strategic plan to digitally document its entire collection, and an American Masterpieces: Visual Arts Touring grant that will help support the upcoming touring exhibition American Modern: Abbott, Evans, Bourke-White and its accompanying catalog and education programs. The exhibition, which opens at the Carter in the fall of 2010, will demonstrate how American photographers in the 1930s reinvented the documentary genre.