A new exhibition at the New York Historical (NYH) stretches along one of the museum’s entrance walls, showcasing archival documents from the Guggenheim Foundation’s 100-year fellowship program.
Long recognized as providing vital support for mid-career artists, scholars, and scientists, Guggenheim Fellowships have granted over $400 million to more than 19,000 fellows during the past century. The inaugural 1925 class included just 15 individuals, but the program has grown significantly and 175 artists received awards last year.
The foundation’s mission has remained unchanged since it was established by Colorado senator Simon Guggenheim and his wife, Olga, as a memorial to their son, John Simon. Hanna Pennington, the Guggenheim Foundation’s archivist and associate director, told the AmNews that the fellowship was created both to honor the family’s son and to address the lack of financial support for the creative community. The main goal is to support artistic excellence and promote growth, allowing individuals to pursue their work “under as free conditions as possible.” Pennington, who co-curated the exhibit with Saray Vazquez of the NYHS, emphasized that this mission “is just as necessary as it was 100 years ago.”
To qualify for the year-long Guggenheim Fellowship, applicants have to submit a narrative about their career, a list of their publications or exhibitions, and a project plan. Fellowships provide recipients with an opportunity to take a break from activities like teaching and focus entirely on their work or receive help with childcare and family support. Fellowship funds cover travel expenses and supplies, giving them the time and space needed to work.
“In many cases, fellows pivot, change direction, or do something different,” Pennington added. “Supporting that flexibility is definitely a big part of the foundation’s mission — to create conditions that give people space to pursue new ideas, follow different paths, and not feel compelled to complete exactly what they initially planned. For example, Isaac Fisher [the first African American awarded a Guggenheim in 1925] and other fellows have written to the foundation saying, ‘I intended to publish a book, and I still haven’t, but I’ve been giving speeches and publishing essays.’ The foundation’s response is that they support the development of people rather than specific projects, and good work doesn’t always result in a book. So, fellows are not held to a particular product.”
Unlike the Rhodes Scholarship, which largely excluded non-white candidates from its selection process for many years, the Guggenheim Foundation has always prioritized awarding fellowships to people of all races and genders. “The Guggenheim Fellowship at 100” exhibit features notable Black artists, writers, and scholars among its recipients, including photographer Roy DeCarava, who received a Guggenheim in 1952 to document the lives of Harlem residents during the late 1940s and early 1950s; poet Langston Hughes, who became a fellow in 1935 and used the funds to work on a novel inspired by the 1919 Chicago Race Riot; painter Archibald John Motley Jr., who was awarded in 1929; and novelist Nella Larsen, the first Black woman to win a Guggenheim, who received her fellowship in 1930.
NYHS’s “The Guggenheim Fellowship at 100” exhibit showcases excerpts from fellowship applications, along with correspondence, artworks, and books created by Guggenheim Fellows. It includes letters from writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston to Guggenheim director Henry Allen Moe, and the first edition of “Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Hurston received fellowships in 1936 and 1937, using the funds to travel to Jamaica and Haiti for her research on “Tell My Horse,” and later to live in Haiti while writing “Their Eyes Were Watching God.” She dedicated the novel to Moe, the Guggenheim’s then secretary-general. Her experiences in Haiti inspired her to write the novel, and upon its publication, she dedicated it to him.
The painter Jacob Lawrence was a Guggenheim Fellow in fine arts in 1945. When he applied for his fellowship, he had recently been discharged from serving in the Coast Guard. His work during the fellowship, especially his war series, reflected that experience. The exhibit includes a small, passport-sized photo of Lawrence that he submitted with his application, giving us a glimpse of him as a young man at work.
Alvin Ailey received a Guggenheim in 1968, during which he traveled with his company and choreographed new works. The year after his fellowship, he established programs that became the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center (now The Ailey School). His application plan outlined dance theater and the influence of other art forms, including music and writing, on his choreography.
The exhibit, “The Guggenheim Fellowship at 100,” is on view at the New York Historical, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024, through November 30, 2025. For more info, visit: https://www.nyhistory.org/exhibitions/the-guggenheim-fellowship-at-100