May 1 - May 3, 2025

The University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art presents a three-day symposium this May that will showcase the museum's recent advancements in restitution and provenance research while engaging in insightful conversations with field experts on ethical museum practices and the critical exploration of cultural heritage.

The Mellon Foundation grant, awarded to the Stanley Museum of Art in 2023, supports in-depth, interdisciplinary research into the provenance of the museum’s African art collection. In addition to the symposium, the grant has facilitated the creation of a Mellon research team at the museum and a University of Iowa course on African art and Museum Studies, offered in collaboration with the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University, expanding access to students at both institutions.

This symposium provides a platform for critical dialogue on the challenges and opportunities in provenance research, highlighting the Stanley Museum of Art’s leadership in ethical museum practices and its dedication to uncovering the complex histories of its collection.

About The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. 

Learn more at mellon.org.