Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation recognizes the work of visual arts journalists with monetary awards. It also makes grants to nonprofit visual arts organizations and journals.
IP TAKE: The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation’s niche is visual arts journalism. Each year, the Rabkin Award program selects individual writers whose work exemplifies “the contributions of visual art journalists to the cultural life of our nation.” This funder does not run an application program; awards are “given by nomination with the input of a panel of art world experts.” A few grants each year also support arts organizations, but the foundation does not provide information about how these organizations are chosen for support. Networking will be key here.
PROFILE: Established in Portland, Maine in 199, the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation is an artist-endowed foundation. Leo Rabkin was a New York City-based artist and public school teacher. Dorothea was a native of Berlin who escaped Nazi Germany, immigrating to the U.S. in 1949. Together, the couple amassed a “landmark collection of American folk art” of over 1,000 items. Originally, their foundation’s mission was “to promote the visual arts through exhibitions, publications and other means of dissemination of information.”
Upon Leo Rabkin’s death in 2015, the foundation received a large bequest from the couple’s estate, including a significant portion of the artwork that Leo created during his life. At this point, the foundation expanded its mission to include three specific objectives. These are:
Advancement of “the public understanding and appreciation of the artistic work of Leo Rabkin” through conservation, preservation and donations and sales of the work;
The development of “a national grant program for visual art journalists honoring Leo Rabkin’s keen interest in art criticism, artists and writers”; and
Support for “cultural organizations that address underserved areas in visual arts philanthropy, especially regarding folk and outsider art which Dorothea and Leo Rabkin greatly admired and collected.”
In 2017, the foundation launched its grant program, which focuses on “the contributions of visual art journalists to the cultural life of our nation.”
Grants for Visual Arts and Journalism
The Rabkin Foundation’s awards program supports visual arts journalists, because “the intellectual and creative contributions of visual arts journalists help sustain and shape artists’ careers” and their work serves as “historical record of living art communities.” Awards have gone to journalists whose work takes the forms of “[r]eviews, articles, blogs, narrative videos and other forms of critical writing.”
Past grantees of the program have contributed to media including Art News, The Los Angeles Times, Vogue, Native American Art Magazine, PBS, Image Magazine, The Nation, and other publications and programs. For additional information about past grantees, see the foundation’s awards page.
Additional grantmaking has gone to visual arts nonprofits and nonprofit art publications including Speedwell Projects, the Brooklyn Rail, Inc. and American Abstract Artists, Inc.
Important Grant Details:
The Rabkin Foundation’s art journalism awards are awarded in the amount of $50,000. Grants to arts organizations are generally made in amounts of up to $10,000.
Grantees are considered for an award by nomination only and a jury decides on the final list of winners.
Recent rounds of funding have awarded between The prize amount is $50,000.
The foundation has selected eight or nine journalist for its grants annually in recent years.
In 2020, the foundation extended its grantmaking to nonprofit visual arts journals that were struggling during the pandemic, but it has not funded organizations since this time.
General inquiries may be submitted to the Rabkin Foundation via email at dfrye@rabkinfoundation.org or telephone at (207) 536-1686.
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