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University Component
Through this component, EHTF has sponsored the creation of a course that trains visual artists to be self-reliant through empowering them with key professional practices skills. By the end of the Fall 2005 semester, 335 Master of Fine Arts students had participated in one of these Professional Practice classes at the following universities: Virginia Commonwealth University, Parsons School of Design at the New School University, California Institute of Arts, School of the Museum of Fine Arts-Boston, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and The School of the Arts at Columbia University. The Foundation works closely with the universities to track program participants and to help universities plan for continuation of the course after Tremaine funding ends.
Artist Hub Cities
The Foundation believes that an arts organization can have an integral role in educating practicing visual artists. After identifying cities that many in the field consider to be "visual artists hubs" -- places that draw visual artists from throughout a geographical region -- the Foundation identified an organization within each city that could serve as a central resource to the local community of artists. Through these organizations, practicing visual artists are able to obtain skills essential to the advancement of their careers.
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Spotlight: Claire Watkins, Artist
 "My work deals with the awe that makes up everyday science," says Brooklyn, NY-based artist Claire Watkins. I''m interested in the power of magnetism, electricity and simple machines; my work is a reminder of these forces."
Claire took the Professional Practice Course at Virginia Commonwealth University, and found that she gained a new perspective on the practice of art as a business. "In academia it''s easy to approach art in an idealistic way, she says. "The reality is that the life of a successful artist requires much more than working in the studio.
The ability to answer the "simple" question "what kind of work do you make?" was an unexpected challenge posed by the course. "It''s incredibly difficult to boil everything you think about down to a couple sentences, Claire says. "In the class we had to come up with our 30-second answer to that question, and I''ve used that answer many times since in my professional life!”
Claire feels that the fact that she''s a successful practicing artist in New York is a tribute to the impact of the course. "Since graduate school I''ve participated in shows in New York City, Washington DC, New Mexico, and Maryland," she says. "I got a rave review in the Washington Post, and later received a travel and production grant to go to Japan to show my work. Having someone pay for me to travel across the globe to show my work sure felt like success! The skills that I learned during the professional practices course helped me in my efforts to pursue the grant.”
Photo:
Parasites, 2005, By Claire Watkins
Pins, iron filings, magnets, motor, copper, ink. A rotating motor that is mounted behind the surface controls the movement of the pins and iron filings. It is only magnetism that holds and controls the pins and iron filings. Courtesy of the artist.
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By the end of 2005, EHTF funded a total of eight organizations in seven different cities, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York and Seattle. Over 3,000 visual artists have been reached through the Tremaine funded programs.
Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award
In honor of Emily''s talent and passion for art, the Foundation established the Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award (Exhibition Award). This biennial award offers funding of up to $125,000 for innovative exhibitions of contemporary visual art. Through the Exhibition Awards, the Foundation seeks to identify thematic shows that are experimental, challenging, and focused, but that would not likely be shown without the support provided by this award.
Two EHTF Exhibition Award recipients opened shows in 2004 and 2005. Curated by Betti-Sue Hertz, the exhibition, The Past in Reverse: Contemporary Art of East Asia , opened for a four-month run at the San Diego Museum of Art. This multi-faceted exhibition showcased artists who combine traditional materials and practices of Asia with contemporary approaches to expressing internal realities. Subsequently, the exhibition traveled to the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri, and the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. The show will also travel to additional venues in 2006. Beginning in 2004, the biennial award provides additional funding to supplement some of the costs of traveling the exhibit.
Curated by Valerie Smith of the Queens Museum of Art, the exhibition Down the Garden Path: Artists Gardens Since 1960 opened on June 26, 2005 and ran through November 6, 2005. The exhibition traced the history of contemporary artists gardens while showing how artists use gardens as a vehicle to explore topics such as history, ecology, and philosophy. In addition to the installation located in the museum gallery, the exhibition featured a garden installation in the neighboring Flushing Meadow Corona Park.
2004 Winners
Street Art, Street Life , curated by Lydia Yee
The Bronx Museum of the Arts
Scheduled to open in the winter of 2008 as the first show in the Bronx Museum of the Arts'' newly constructed space, the exhibition will examine the street as subject matter, venue and source of inspiration for contemporary artists and photographers from the late 1950s to the present. Through works by more than 30 major and emerging artists, Street Art, Street Life will include street photography, documentation of performance, events and artworks presented in the street, works using material from the street, and examples of street culture.
Reality Bites: Making Avant-Garde Art in Post-Wall Germany , curated by Sabine Eckmann
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University
The new building for the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University is scheduled to open in fall 2006. One of the first exhibits in the new space will be the exhibition Reality Bites. Reality Bites will bring into focus the interdependence of art and the social, economic, and political worlds since the fall of the Berlin Wall in November of 1989 and the subsequent unification of the two Germanys in October of 1990. Exploring how a new generation of visual artists has dealt, directly and indirectly, with the effects of unification, Reality Bites will be organized around the themes of national identity, globalization and collective trauma.
Return to the 2004-2005 Biennial Report Table of Contents.
Emily Hall Tremaine''s passion for art inspired, challenged, and brought joy to those around her. The Tremaine art collection was widely considered to be one of the finest reflections of contemporary art in the nation previous to it being sold to create the asset base for the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation. In the words of art historian Robert Rosenblum, the collection in its entirety invoked "new constellations of meanings and importance." 
