Harlem’s Studio Museum, Reopening In 2025, Gets $10 Million

HARLEM, NY – The Studio Museum, which plans to open a new, 82,000-square-foot building at 144 West 125th Street in the fall of 2025, received a $10 million grant from the Ford Foundation earlier this week.

Announced by Ford Foundation President Darren Walker at the museum’s annual gala on Oct. 28, the grant will support and permanently name the position of Director and Chief Curator, a role held by the Studio Museum’s Thelma Golden for nearly two decades.

The funding arrives as the museum prepares to reopen in its new home in 2025. The debut will feature an exhibition of the work of Tom Lloyd, an artist whose abstract sculptures were first presented by the museum when it opened in 1968.

The Lloyd exhibition is “one of many” inaugural projects, according to a press release.

The new building will expand exhibition spaces by more than 50 percent and public areas by about 60 percent, according to a report in the New York Times. The structure, designed by Adjaye Associates and Cooper Robertson, will also include a theater, education center, artist studio, rooftop terrace, and a café, offering what Golden describes as a “gift” to the Harlem community and a welcoming space for audiences of all kinds.

As of earlier this fall, the museum had raised nearly $300 million in support of the project.