Press Release 2008

U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation awards grant to the National Gallery

U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica Brenda LaGrange Johnson, this morning presented the National Gallery of Jamaica with an award of US$27,330 under the Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation. The award will be used to repair and preserve five nationally significant works of art.

Speaking during a presentation ceremony yesterday (July 16), Ambassador Johnson, an avid art lover and patron of Jamaican art, said the U.S. Embassy looks forward to continued collaboration with the National Gallery in the year ahead, “since preserving Jamaica’s cultural heritage is a very important priority for the U.S. Embassy in Kingston.”

The National Gallery will send the paintings to the Western Center for the Conservation of Fine Arts in Denver, Colorado, for professional conservation services that would otherwise not be affordable.

Minister of Information, Culture, Youth and Sports Olivia Grange thanked Ambassador Johnson for being a vanguard in the endeavor of providing resources for the Gallery. She said, “The National Gallery of Jamaica, belongs to the people of Jamaica, and its collections are an essential part of the heritage of all Jamaicans, including citizens of the Jamaican Diaspora.”
 
Minister Grange said the U.S. Embassy provides real assistance, through international exchanges, but noted that Jamaica will need to find training for young Jamaicans in this highly-skilled discipline, “for there is abundant work for them to do.”

This award is the second for the gallery in two years. In 2006 the gallery was the recipient of an award under the Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation of US$24,800.00. That initial award was used to hire two noted conservation experts from the United States, Hilda Utermohlen and her assistant Anya McBean. The experts spent several weeks in Jamaica examining the collections, putting on workshops, demonstrating basic conservation techniques, promoting awareness of conservation, and compiling a list of urgent requirements for the National Gallery. 

The five works that will be preserved under this current program were identified by Utermohlen and McBean as requiring urgent and special attention.

The National Gallery of Jamaica is the largest national gallery in the English-speaking Caribbean with a collection of approximately 1700 works of art, most composed of wood, oil on canvas, or works on paper. 

The Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation is a program under the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, which has supported almost 500 projects worldwide, totaling more than U.S. $12 million, illustrating America’s commitment to helping people around the world preserve and protect their rich cultural traditions.