Heckscher Museum of Art awarded $250,000 grant for LGBTQ+ exhibitions, programs

The Heckscher Museum of Art has been awarded a $250,000 grant to focus on LGBTQ+ exhibitions and programs.

The museum, located in Huntington's Heckscher Park, announced it will use the grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to spend 2025 highlighting major works by LGBTQ+ artists, including Marsden Hartley, Betty Parsons, the PaJaMa collective, Alice Rahon and Robert Rauschenberg.

“We are honored to accept this grant from IMLS,” the museum's executive director and CEO, Heather Arnet, said in a statement.

The focus for the year was inspired in part by the upcoming 10th anniversary of Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court case that recognized same-sex couples’ right to marry.

“I think it's a great way to bolster that awareness and the understanding of how recent such an important historic achievement was made, as well as how vital it is to keep that close in our rearview mirror as we continue to drive forward to protect that right,” said Robert Vitelli, CEO of the LGBT Network.

The exhibits will not only tout the works of LGBTQ+ artists, but also highlight their personal stories. The first exhibit, which will run from Feb. 1 to March 30, will highlight the works of Berenice Abbott, described by Arnet as an “important modernist photographer” of the early 20th century.

The museum director said that “for one of the first times,” Abbott’s photographs will be paired with corresponding writings of art critic Elizabeth McCausland, her life partner.

“A lot of people know of Abbott’s work, but they might be less familiar with her personal story,” Arnet said. She added that the pairing of the partners' works “reminds us … how for so long, so many people had to live their life and love in secret.”

From June 7 to Sept. 14, the entire museum will showcase LGBTQ+ artists through the “Pride in the Collection” exhibit. Arnet said it will be guest-curated by Victoria Monroe, executive director of the Alice Austen House, a Staten Island museum ensconced in the LGBTQ+ photographer’s historic home, a “designated historic site of LGBTQ+ importance.”

The Pride celebration will carry over into 2026 through the Emma Stebbins exhibit, open from Sept. 27 to March 15, 2026. Arnet said Stebbins “was one of the first women to ever receive a public art commission to make the Bethesda Fountain,” an iconic Central Park fixture.

Arnet hopes these exhibits and stories reach teens, especially those in the LGBTQ+ community. She said the museum plans to use the grant funds to form community and youth advisory boards to recruit young Long Islanders for help reaching their peers and to involve them in the curation process.

“They can help inform exhibition design, help us think through wall text and educational brochures to make sure that we are communicating in a way that resonates with teens now and also addresses really important and pressing questions,” Arnet said.

The project is one of 115 nationwide selected by IMLS through its Museums for America program, chosen from hundreds of submissions.

The federal IMLS supports the nation's libraries and museums, with the goal of empowering museums, libraries and related organizations through grantmaking, research and policy development.