PRESTIGIOUS GRANT AWARDED TO THE RINGLING

Last September, The Ringling was awarded a grant of $120,650 by the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for an important project to upgrade the Museum’s onsite storage capacity. This generous grant, made through the prestigious IMLS Museums for America program, supported the purchase of 34 custom painting storage screens and two rolled storage racks, which were installed in The Ringling’s art storage vault and conservation laboratory in April of this year.

These painting screens and rolled storage units are museumgrade stainless steel racks specially designed to safely store paintings that are not on view in the Museum galleries. The installation of these screens allowed us to begin to move approximately 160 paintings formerly stored offsite—most dating from before 1800—back to Museum property for safe storage. This will mean that The Ringling’s entire collection of paintings will be housed onsite for the first time in many years.

As part of this work, the paintings themselves will be closely examined by conservation staff, newly photographed, and recorded in our collections database. Having the paintings onsite will allow them to be more easily studied, consulted, and conserved by Museum staff and visiting scholars.

We are extremely grateful to IMLS for its generous support of this project, which will have both an immediate and lasting impact on our ability to preserve and study The Ringling’s internationally recognized collection of paintings.