NEW LONDON, CONN.- The National Endowment for the Arts and the National Park Service (NPS) announced $797,500 in support of 33 grants in 16 states, including an award of $30,000 to the Lyman Allyn Art Museum. ‘Imagine Your Parks’ is a new grant initiative from the National Endowment for the Arts to support projects in which the arts engage people with memorable places and landscapes of the National Park System.

NEA Chairman Jane Chu said, "As the National Endowment for the Arts celebrates its 50th anniversary and the National Park Service observes its Centennial, we want people to remember that our cultural and natural treasures are part of what makes America great. ‘Imagine Your Parks’ projects from the Grand Canyon in Arizona, to downtown Atlanta, Georgia will inspire the imagination of people across the country. We are proud to support projects from organizations like the Lyman Allyn Art Museum to offer more opportunities to engage in the arts.”

The Lyman Allyn will use the grant support for a major upcoming exhibition titled “A Good Summer’s Work: J. Alden Weir, Connecticut Impressionist,” on view May 7 – September 11, 2016. The exhibition will focus on works painted in Windham and eastern Connecticut by J. Alden Weir and other American Impressionists in his circle. Weir (1852-1919) is most often associated with his studio at Weir Farm National Historic Site in Branchville, Connecticut, yet many of the artist’s best works were created at his less well-known retreat in Windham, located in the NPS-affiliated Last Green Valley National Heritage Corridor in eastern Connecticut. The exhibition, curated by Dr. Anne E. Dawson, Weir scholar and Professor of Art History at Eastern Connecticut State University, will bring together for the first time more than 60 works from museums and private collections across the country.

The Lyman Allyn Art Museum is also a proud recipient of a $6,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that will support the purchase of three archival-quality flat file units for the storage of works on paper in the Lyman Allyn’s permanent collection. The flat files will accommodate an estimated 250 to 350 drawings, prints, photographs and other works on paper, which will be removed from acidic mats, plywood storage slots and other inefficient and/or deleterious storage situations and rehoused in archival materials in order to be stored more safely and efficiently.

The Museum’s permanent collection is comprised of over 16,000 objects, including 1,800 works on paper consisting primarily of prints, drawings, photographs and watercolors. The collection as a whole spans a 2600-year period from antiquity to the present day, with particular strengths in the 18th and 19th centuries. The 1,800 works on paper in the Museum’s collection are among the Museum’s most significant artistic works and represent periods in art history from the 15th century to today. They are utilized by the Lyman Allyn and borrowing museums in exhibitions and by students, scholars and authors for teaching, research and publication purposes. Storing them more safely, efficiently and accessibly will not only allow collections staff to better preserve them and respond to requests for use, but will help to alleviate overcrowding in collections storage.