The Arts Council of Great Britain was a non-departmental public body dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts in Great Britain. It was divided in 1994 to form the Arts Council of England (now Arts Council England), the Scottish Arts Council (later merged into Creative Scotland), and the Arts Council of Wales. In January 1940, during the Second World War, the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts was appointed to help promote and maintain British culture. Chaired by Lord De La Warr, President of the Board of Education, the council was government-funded and after the war was renamed the Arts Council of Great Britain. Reginald Jacques was appointed musical director with Sir Henry Walford Davies and George Dyson also involved. John Denison took over after the war. A royal charter was granted on 9 August 1946 followed by another in 1967. The latter provided for functions in Scotland and Wales to be conducted by two committees known as the Scottish and Welsh Arts Councils – the basis for the later Scottish Arts Council and Arts Council of Wales.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is an art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the fourth-largest museum in the world and the largest art museum in the Americas. The New York State Legislature granted the Metropolitan Museum of Art an Act of Incorporation on April 13, 1870, "for the purpose of establishing and maintaining in said City a Museum and Library of Art, of encouraging and developing the Study of the Fine Arts, and the application of Art to manufacture and natural life, of advancing the general knowledge of kindred subjects, and to that end of furnishing popular instruction and recreations". This legislation was supplemented later by the 1893 Act, Chapter 476, which required that its collections "shall be kept open and accessible to the public free of all charge throughout the year". The founders included businessmen and financiers, among them Theodore Roosevelt Sr., the father of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the US, as well as leading artists and thinkers of the day, who wanted to open a museum to bring art and art education to the American people. Henry Gurdon Marquand donated an important part of his collection of Old Masters paintings to the fledgling institution. The museum first opened on February 20, 1872, housed in a building located at 681 Fifth Avenue.
Reading Museum is a museum, located in the Town Hall, of the history of the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire, and the surrounding area. Reading Town Hall was built in several phases between 1786 and 1897, although the principal façade was designed by Alfred Waterhouse in 1875. In 1879, the foundation stone was laid for a new wing containing a library and museum, and the museum duly opened in 1883. The museum displayed a large eclectic collection from the late Horatio Bland. Three art galleries were added in further extension in 1897In 1975, the civic offices moved out of the Town Hall to Reading Civic Centre. They were followed in 1985 by the Reading Central Library which left only the museum and the concert hall in use. After some debate, plans to demolish the Town Hall and replace it with a new cultural centre were abandoned, and in 1986 refurbishment of the building started. The museum was closed for renewal in 1989, reopening in stages from 1993 (the Reading: People & Place gallery) to 2000.
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Portuguese: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian) is a Portuguese institution dedicated to the promotion of the arts, philanthropy, science, and education. One of the wealthiest charitable foundations in the world, the Gulbenkian Foundation was founded on 18 July 1956 according to the last will and testament of Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian, a Portugal-based oil magnate who bequeathed his assets to the country in the form of a foundation.
The Göttingen Municipal Museum is one of the oldest museums of urban history in Lower Saxony. It is located in Göttingen's last remaining Renaissance aristocratic palace. For more than 130 years, we have been collecting, researching, preserving and presenting the material heritage of the city of Göttingen. Over 150,000 original objects tell stories about the lives of the people of Göttingen and the development of our city.
The organization was established in 1973 to coordinate the work of Islamic centres and organizations in Europe. Its headquarters are in London. The council was formed pursuant to resolutions adopted at a conference of Muslim foreign ministers and was supported by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia. Salem Azzam was a long time director.
The Scottish Arts Council (Scottish Gaelic: Comhairle Ealain na h-Alba, Scots: Scots Airts Cooncil) was a Scottish public body responsible for the funding, development and promotion of the arts in Scotland. The Council primarily distributed funding from the Scottish Government as well as National Lottery funds received via the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The Scottish Arts Council was formed in 1994 following a restructuring of the Arts Council of Great Britain, but had existed as an autonomous body since a royal charter of 1967. In 2010 it merged with Scottish Screen to form Creative Scotland.
Asia Society is the leading educational organization dedicated to promoting mutual understanding and strengthening partnerships among peoples, leaders and institutions of Asia and the United States in a global context. Across the fields of arts, business, culture, education, and policy, the Society provides insight, generates ideas, and promotes collaboration to address present challenges and create a shared future. Founded in 1956, Asia Society is a nonpartisan, non-profit educational institution with offices in Hong Kong, Houston, Los Angeles, Manila, Mumbai, New York, San Francisco, Seoul, Sydney, Tokyo, Washington, DC and Zurich
The Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art includes the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. The Sackler Gallery features both permanent and temporary exhibitions from ancient times to the present. The museum is home to an incomparable collection of art, including some of the most important ancient Chinese jades and bronzes in the world.