UF’s Harn Museum awarded $282,000 grant for Asian art

UF’s Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art received a $282,000 grant to help the museum continue publishing Asian art manuscripts.

The national Henry Luce Foundation awarded the grant to the museum in November, said Tami Wroath, the museum’s director of marketing and public relations.

The grant will fund the David A. Cofrin Asian Art Manuscript Series, which publishes books about Asian art. The Harn was one of seven museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim Museum, to receive money for its Asian cultural program. The grant will be awarded to the museum over a four-year period, she said.

In addition to the manuscript program, a central component of the Harn’s Asian art exhibition is the David A. Cofrin Asian Art Wing, which was added in March 2012, Wroath said.

“With the five-year anniversary of the David A. Cofrin Asian Art Wing upon us, we are thrilled to be able to continue to provide and share research on our Asian collections held and exhibited in this wing,” she said.

Gabriella Crespo, a UF art history and business administration sophomore, said she fell in love with the Harn when she visited UF in high school.

Crespo, a former student intern with the Harn, said she respects the diversity of the museum’s Asian art exhibit.

“Asia encompasses so much,” the 19-year-old said. “They display the entire culture, not just mainstreams of each culture.”