Paging All New Age Medicis - Patrons of Individual Artists Curried by Major Foundations

" I believe there are individuals who would like to give to artists directly but worry they lack a system to help identify talent." This from Susan Berresford, quoted in a New York Times article by Stephanie Strom regarding a new program providing grants to individual artists. Berresford, whose Ford Foundation joined Rockefeller, Prudential and the Alaska-based Rasmuson Foundation to pony up $20 million for the project called United States Artists, continued "This creates a mechanism through which people can do that." 

It's a great idea, as old as Lorenzo de Medici, famed patron of Da Vinci and Michelangelo. Donors want to support the arts and some want to do so by investing in the talent of individual artists they believe promising. As Berresford points out, there has been no marketplace and more than a few legal barriers to doing so.

With today's technology, the project portal should greet potential donors with stunning "investment" options that dazzle and engage. I would think that you wouldn't launch the project to worldwide attention until such a marketplace was ready to meet and charm all comers. That's not the case today but hopefully part of what the $20 million will buy.

Susan Herr