The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation announced today that it is launching two new multiyear educational initiatives that will support art and art history students studying at the undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate levels. The organization will give nearly $5 million through scholarships and gifts of art to several art schools across the United States.

A total of $2 million will be awarded to the Columbia University School of the Arts; the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; the School of the Arts and Architecture at the University of California, Los Angeles; and the Yale School of Art. Each institution will receive a one-time endowment gift of $500,000 for MFA scholarships and will be invited to work with the foundation to develop a related program, which may take the shape of a lecture or a visit to the organization’s New York City research center. Four more schools will be named the recipients of Frankenthaler scholarships at a later date.

In addition, the foundation will establish the Frankenthaler Prints Initiative, for which it will donate ten prints and additional proofs from its collection of Frankenthaler’s works to ten university museums: the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin; the Bowdoin College Museum of Art; the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum; the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts at the Hammer Museum at the University of California Los Angeles; the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum; the Princeton University Art Museum; the RISD Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design; the SCAD Museum of Art at Savannah College of Art and Design; and the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas.

Selected for their commitment to the acquisition of prints and development of educational programming, the institutions will receive one-time grants of $25,000 for the presentation of exhibitions and scholarship on the works, which include etchings, lithographs, monotypes, screen prints, and woodcuts.

“Helen had a strong interest in supporting college- and university-level art education,” Clifford Ross, chair of the foundation’s board of trustees, said in a statement. “Her own fortunate training at Bennington, and her active lecture schedule at art schools and universities during her career, made her aware of the benefits of an enlightened and stimulating education. With Frankenthaler Scholarships, we hope to extend Helen’s interests to help outstanding students who will particularly benefit from our financial support.”