Arts and Letters

Since 1946, Arts and Letters has purchased over 1,400 works of art for donation to public collections throughout the United States. In 2023, we expanded this program to include funding the production of new works of art. A committee of Arts and Letters members commissions these works, which are exhibited in our galleries and placed in museum collections across the country.

Support for these commissions is provided by the Art Purchase Fund. American Impressionist painter and founding member Childe Hassam bequeathed over 400 paintings, watercolors, pastels, lithographs, and etchings to Arts and Letters with the request that the accumulated income from their sale be used to purchase works by living American painters for donation to museums across the United States. Similar bequests were established by members Eugene Speicher, Louis Betts, and Gardner Symons.

In 2023, Arts and Letters purchased a work from Aki Sasamoto’s performance commission Squirrel Ways. Through a partnership with the Calder Foundation, the work will be placed with an American museum of the artist’s choosing.

A group of Arts and Letters members are in the process of drawing new versions of our official seal, whose original design from the early 20th century featured a winged Pegasus. The new seal will be an evolving mark that reflects the artistry of our members in the departments of Architecture, Art, Literature, and Music. Artist Joan Jonas’s seal, pictured here, is in use on our website now, and seals by other members will be released in the future.