UNITED STATES ARTISTS DISTRIBUTES $2.7 MILLION IN GRANTS

United States Artists, a new nonprofit organization that makes grants directly to artists, has made its first awards, distributing $2.7 million in unrestricted grants to artists working in fields ranging from architecture and design to the visual arts, reports the New York Times‘ Stephanie Strom. Among the fifty artists receiving fifty thousand dollars were Chris Ware, a cartoonist from Illinois; Basil Twist, a puppeteer in New York; and Anna Brown Ehlers of Alaska, who weaves blankets in the tradition of her Northern Tlingit family. They were selected from among some 300 artists nominated by 150 arts leaders from around the country. The group was created this year with twenty million dollars from four foundations—Ford, Rockefeller, Prudential, and Rasmuson—and has also attracted individual donors, including Agnes Gund and Eli and Edythe Broad.