DALLAS, TX.- The Dallas Museum of Art announced that it has received a major grant of $70,000 from the federal National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in their Access to Artistic Excellence category. This grant – the third prestigious award made to the Museum from the NEA since 2007 – will be used to fund the DMA-ECO project – Dallas Museum of Art-Exhibition Catalogs Online. Upon the project’s completion in 2012, the public will have an economical and eco-friendly method to access thousands of document pages and artist exhibition citations never before made available.

Founded in 1903, the Dallas Museum of Art has presented more than 1,500 exhibitions in its 107-year history. The DMA-ECO project will digitally document 500 exhibitions organized by the Museum from 1903 to 1983, recording a progression of cultural, social, and political environments over eight decades. It also extends and expands the Museum’s Digital Archives, an endowed program funded in 2008 with gifts from the Dedman Foundation and an anonymous donor.

Exhibition documentation is a primary resource for researchers of contemporary art, American art and Texas regionalist art, African art, Asian art, South Pacific art, ancient art from the Mediterranean, ancient American art, and European art – all represented in the Museum’s exhibitions.

DMA-ECO, a joint project between the Museum’s Mildred R. and Frederick M. Mayer Library and the DMA Digital Archives – which house and preserve the Museum’s institutional history – expands the content available through the Museum’s Arts Network, a system that effectively and efficiently creates and delivers content to onsite and online visitors and which has been funded by government grants and priv at e foundations.

“We are honored that the NEA has recognized the Dallas Museum of Art once again and is partnering with us to share this unique content with the international community,” said Bonnie Pitman , The Eugene McDermott Director at the Dallas Museum of Art. “Our art and research collections are at the core of our mission to engage and educate our community and to contribute to cultural knowledge. Digitization of the exhibition records is an important next step in our efforts to share them with audiences both at the Museum and virtually.”

“DMA-Exhibition Catalogs Online will make it possible for researchers to obtain access to information that before could only be consulted by traveling to a library or by requesting a photocopy,” added Jacqueline Allen, The Mildred R. and Frederick Mayer Director of Libraries and Imaging Services at the DMA. “Most of the records are unique or cataloged by fewer than ten libraries in the world. The digital copies will allow users to discover, consult and print relevant records as needed.”

“It is the goal of the Museum to share all future DMA publications online,” said Tamara Wootton-Bonner , Chair of the Collections and Exhibitions Division at the DMA. “In January 2010, The Arts of Africa at the Dallas Museum of Art catalog was the first complete collections publication to be made available to all audiences. It can be seen at www.DallasMuseumofArt.org/View/Publications.”