About the Center

As both a grantmaker and hub for knowledge-sharing, the Center is dedicated to fostering a vibrant and diverse cultural ecology. We invest in ambitious and substantive work that showcases our region’s artistic vitality and enhances public life. We also engage in a robust exchange of ideas on evolving artistic and interpretive practices with an international network of creators and cultural leaders.  

Established in 2005, the Center is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts, Philadelphia.

A grantmaker for a vibrant community 

Our grants operate as catalysts for cultural practitioners to create boldly, pursue excellence, and pose urgent questions around the purpose and impact of their work.  

The Center annually awards Project grants in two areas—Performance and Exhibitions & Public Interpretation—making possible thousands of performing arts events, history and visual arts exhibitions, and other public cultural programs. Our twelve annual Fellowships support the area’s exemplary artists in pursuing their artistic and career goals through substantial, unrestricted grants and professional development resources. 

In addition to the hundreds of thousands of live and virtual audience members they reach in Philadelphia and its surrounding counties each year, Center-supported projects and Pew Fellows frequently tour internationally, advancing Philadelphia's cultural impact and raising its visibility around the world. 

A hub for ideas 

The Center continually seeks to spark ideas and imagination, to represent a multiplicity of perspectives, and to deepen conversations across a broad and diverse community of creative makers. Our Questions of Practice series presents ongoing dialogue about issues critical to artistic practice today. We produce an extensive collection of interviews with and essays by noted field leaders and thinkers, as well as in-depth publications that grow out of our experience as cultural grantmakers. 

Through all of our knowledge-sharing activities, we aim to advance the arts and heritage fields and connect Philadelphia to a global network of cultural practitioners.  

Land Acknowledgement

The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage is situated in Lenapehoking, unceded homelands of the Lenape people. The Center recognizes and honors the original stewards of this land, and all past, present, and future Indigenous communities here for their ongoing resilience and the cultural lineage that continues to shape this region today.