2026 Failey Grants Awarded to Nine Institutions

The Decorative Arts Trust is pleased to offer support through Dean F. Failey Grants to nine outstanding projects in the material culture field, a record number of grantees for this impactful program. The Trust received over 60 applications for this funding, surpassing last year’s impressive count. This pool of stellar applicants made the review committee’s decisions difficult, and we are thrilled to support noteworthy projects at a broad variety of museums across the country.

In collaboration with the Jackson Hole History Museum, Central Wyoming College in Riverton will present Behind Linear Narratives: Indigenous Plains Ledger Art. This exhibition and program series reexamines important Native American art traditions while highlighting the creativity and contribution of contemporary Indigenous artists. The exhibition will run from April through October 2026.

The Clay Studio in Philadelphia will orchestrate Radical Americana, a sequence of exhibitions across the city that invites artists to explore and contemplate the moment of the United States’ founding in 1776, the 1876 Centennial Exhibition, the Sesquicentennial in 1926, and the Bicentennial in 1976. In 2026, 16 Philadelphia-area organizations will serve as host sites for a total of 28 artists to display new work made for the collaboration.

The James Gallery of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) plans to unveil the exhibition In the Shadow of Afong Moy in spring 2027. Known as “the Chinese lady” in the mid-19th century, Moy was brought from Guangzhou to New York in 1834 by American merchants, who presented her alongside displays of Chinese export art and furniture in touring shows.

Delta Arts Center in Winston-Salem, NC, will present Threads of Memory: Black Craft, Design, and Decorative Arts in the Carolinas. The exhibition, scheduled December 2026–March 2027, is anchored by Thomas Day, the free Black cabinetmaker whose design mastery defined 19th-century North Carolina furniture, and Peter Oliver, the Moravian potter whose skill shaped early Salem’s material culture.

The Museum at FIT in New York, NY, received support for Behind the Seams: Conserving Fashionable Dress, a 2027 exhibition that will share a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the museum’s conservation team’s work with a renowned (and fragile) collection. In response to public interest in conservation care, the show will recreate the three primary spaces in which they operate: the laboratory, collections storage, and the gallery.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, MA, will conserve and research two Japanese folding screens: Tale of Genji (17th-century) and Bird and Flower (the late-18th-century– early-19th-century). These screens will anchor forthcoming exhibitions exploring materials, craftsmanship, and cross-cultural exchange in East Asian art and material culture.

The Newcomb Art Museum at Tulane University in New Orleans, LA, will present the exhibition Quiet Reserve: Stitching an Ambitious New Woman, scheduled August-December 2026. The exhibition will feature objects associated with the Newcomb Enterprise, an educational experiment designed to provide women with financial independence by training them to produce handcrafted goods.

In 2027, the University of Delaware in Newark will stage the traveling exhibition Pomo Baskets, Woven Futures. The exhibition will showcase the work of past and current Pomo weavers, many of whom have achieved international fame for their stunning beaded and feathered gift baskets.

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, CT, will conserve and mount a rare 17th-century buff coat (leather jerkin). The treatment will enable the museum to include the garment in the 2026 exhibition Connecticut: Cradle of Democracy, organized in celebration of the Semiquincentennial.

The Failey Grant program provides support for noteworthy exhibition and object-based conservation projects through the Dean F. Failey Fund, named in honor of the Trust’s late Governor. Applications are due October 31 annually. Sign up for the e-newsletter and follow the Trust on Instagram and Facebook for updates on grant opportunities and announcements. Thank you to the Trust members and donors who help make these grants possible!