School Partnerships

School partnerships reflect the Studio Museum’s deep commitment to schools in Harlem and across New York City. Since its founding in 1968, the Museum has prioritized in-school partnerships that focus on connecting artists with the whole school community, including students, parents, educators, and administrators.

Reproduction of Jordan Casteel, Kevin the Kiteman, 2016, on view at Thurgood Marshall Academy Lower School

Ongoing School partnerships

School partnerships engage K—12th students with transitional learning, alternative education, and continuing education programs. We work closely with educators of all disciplines, families, school counselors, afterschool programs, and school leadership to connect to the school ecosystem.

Each partnership is uniquely built in collaboration with the Museum’s education staff, Artist Educators, and teachers. Partnerships are informed by the diverse creative practices of the Studio Museum’s innovative group of Artist Educators who facilitate each partnership.

Schools

Thurgood Marshall Academy Lower School is a District 5 public school in Harlem that serves students from kindergarten to 5th grade. TMALS, one of the Studio Museum’s longest-running partners, focuses on holistic learning experiences through social-emotional learning, cultural responsiveness, and belonging. TMALS values student agency and voice while fostering parent and community partnerships. Each year we work across grade levels with general education teachers to connect curriculum to community and art.

P.S. 36 is a District 5 public school in Harlem that serves students from 3-K to 5th grade and is one of the Studio Museum’s oldest school partners. The school focuses on making connections through sensory experiences, community-building, literacy, and storytelling. Collaborating with families and caregivers is a central part of our partnership at P.S. 36.

P.S. M079 is a District 5 public school in Harlem that serves students ages eight to twenty-one with a range of intellectual and physical abilities. The school celebrates diversity and uses creativity to connect across curriculums and build communication and life skills. In a partnership spanning more than nine years, we provide art engagement for students in collaboration with the school’s art teacher.

Community Health Academy of the Heights is a District 6 public school in Washington Heights that serves students from 6th through 12th grade. CHAH forges strong relationships with community organizations to offer students unique opportunities to think critically and act as meaningful change agents. The Studio Museum works with English Language Learning students in this bilingual partnership.

Park East High School is a District 4 public school in Harlem that serves students from 9th through 12th grade. Their mission is to educate all students on becoming complex problem solvers. Students develop individual and social responsibility and are a part of an inclusive, fun-loving, and respectful community that helps them to realize ambitious goals. This afterschool partnership connects students to artists and art resources in East Harlem.

ReStart Academy Euphrasian Residence is a District 79 public school and short-term residence in Gramercy Park for teens from all five boroughs who have been referred by the New York City Administration for Children’s Services. Our partnership focuses on using art to tell stories and reimagine negative narratives by learning about the artistic process and visiting artist studios.

Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social Change is a District 5 public school that serves students from 6th through 12th grade. This afterschool partnership focuses on developing an individual art practice and connecting to art and cultural organizations in Central Harlem.

P.S. M811 is a District 75 special education public school that serves students from four to fourteen years old. The school focuses on specially designed instruction based on students’ unique physical and socio-emotional needs and strengths, as well as student-directed learning with an emphasis on communication. Our work together challenges students through collaborative art-making and includes visits to experience art in Harlem.

Thurgood Marshall Academy Lower School partnership, 2019. Photo: Jennifer Harley

School partnership class visit to Maren Hassinger: Monuments, 2018. Photo: Jennifer Harley

Bronx Arts Middle School partnership class visit to artist Rico Gatson's subway commission, "Beacons" mosaic mural at 167th Street in the Bronx, April 2019. Photo: Jennifer Harley

Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social Justice (TMA) partnership sessions, 2019. Photo: Jennifer Harley

Partnership Programs

Artist Visits

The Studio Museum offers the opportunity to invite an artist into your organization for a one-time visit. Artist visits engage community members in conversation with living artists of African descent, exploring artwork through inquiry-based discussions, experimenting with art-making techniques through workshops and artist-led demonstrations, and providing opportunities to learn about careers in the arts.

A group of children and adults smile and pose in a classroom.

Find Art Here

How can artwork in the Studio Museum in Harlem’s permanent collection invite us to connect to our communities and investigate the world around us?

Find Art Here is an initiative designed to bring the Museum’s permanent collection to schools, libraries, service centers, and other community spaces throughout Harlem. The first wave of the program began in late September 2018 with partner institutions in Harlem. The institutions received high-quality reproductions of artwork, chosen in collaboration with the Studio Museum. The works, dating from 1954 through 2016, were made by a multigenerational roster of artists closely associated with the Museum throughout its history, including: Derrick Adams, Benny Andrews, Jordan Casteel, Elizabeth Catlett, LeRoy Clarke, Glenn Ligon, Mickalene Thomas, and Stephanie Weaver.

Find Art Here Partners

The Studio Museum and Thurgood Marshall Academy Lower School, the District 5 public elementary school in Harlem have partnered for almost a decade. Students had the opportunity to vote on what artwork would become a part of their school and Jordan Casteel’s Kevin the Kiteman (2016) came out on top! Students learned about Casteel’s work the previous year, which culminated with the artist’s visit to their classrooms. In fall 2019, all 1st and 2nd grade students explored writing about their artwork and learned new vocabulary. Using Casteel’s art to explore themes of community and Black liberation, students created community maps of Harlem, made sculptures of things that important to them in their communities, and experimented with photography.

P.S. 79 is a District 5 public school in Harlem that serves students ages 8 to 21 with a range of intellectual and physical abilities. The Studio Museum has worked with P.S. 79 for over 8 years. The school’s administration was instantly drawn to Benny Andrews’s Composition (Study for Trash) (1971) because of its relationship to current events. They were excited by how the work will challenge students to think critically about the political climate. This year the museum is working with student’s afterschool programs to experiment with a range of painting techniques, collage, and live figure drawing. Students are building their communication skills by practicing having conversations about the artwork in their school, sharing their artwork with their peers, and learning about how images tell stories.

P.S. 36 is a District 5 public school in Harlem that serves students from 3-K to 5th grades. The Studio Museum has worked with P.S. 36 for 6 years. Following a favorite portrait project based on Derrick Adams’s artwork, teachers selected The Journey (2017) to be installed outside of the school library. This year Studio Museum is working with all of the school’s 3-K, Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten classes. Kindergarteners focused on the work of Derrick Adams and learned about color, shapes, texture, and composition. They learned about sharing with their community through conversation and collaboration while working together to make class collages. 3-K students have been learning about movement in artwork. Pre-K students are focusing on understanding how the arts bring people together and make us feel like we belong, as well as learning about light and transformation in art and the world around them.

Park East High School is a District 4 public school in Harlem that serves students from 9th through 12th grades, the Studio Museum has worked with Park East for 2 years. This year the Museum is working with all of the school's studio and digital art classes and their afterschool Art Club. Art students created prints in response to Glenn Ligon’s I Found My Voice (1990) by doing research on social justice issues in their community and creating text–based prints. Art Club focuses on helping students make new work for their portfolios by collaborating with artists whose artistic practice is connected to East Harlem through studio visits and art–making collaborations. Students have had the opportunity to create art in Coronado Print Studio just blocks from their school and explore Miguel Luciano’s Young Lords mural project on display in East Harlem with the artist.

Revolutionary Seeds / AHRC Fisher Center is a community–based organization that focuses on the creative and financial independence of young adults and adults with disabilities. They serve people throughout Harlem and were created through a collaboration between Job Path and AHRC New York City. The artists at AHRC have been creating drawings and paintings in response to Elizabeth Cattlet’s The Separation (1954). Movement and mindfulness have been at the center of our work together this year as participants learned about Cattlet’s life story and experimented with new printmaking techniques.

Harlem Library is a New York Public Library that has been welcoming community residents since 1826, and was the first site for the Museum’s inHarlem initiative nearly three years ago. The Studio Museum continues to partner with The Harlem Library as the location of the Museum’s early childhood program Lil’ Studio, a program which makes connections between literacy and artwork inspired by Black culture. The library was very excited to add Mickalene Thomas’s Panthera (2002) to the children’s floor where it is in conversation with many of their Children’s and Young Adult books including Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Black Panther. Early childhood learners at Lil’ Studio read the book Doña Flor by Pat Mora and Raul Colon, learned about Panthera through visual inquiry, and made sequin–encrusted collages in response.

P.S. 154 is a District 5 public school in Harlem that serves students from Pre-K through 5th grades. The artwork of Stephanie Weaver, one of the Studio Museum’s first artists in residence, was an instant favorite for the school. P.S. 154 families participated in two Family Days this year, working together to create artwork inspired by the inHarlem exhibition Firelei Báez: Joy Out of Fire. Teachers at P.S. 154 connected Hallelujah to their English Language Arts curriculum by asking students to look closely at the artwork and respond in writing.

Countee Cullen is a New York Public Library that gives Harlem residents of all ages access to library services in the community. Countee Cullen Library, an inHarlem partnering institution, also served as the site for the exhibition Derrick Adams: Patrick Kelly, The Journey in 2017. Given the libraries’ history with The Studio Museum in Harlem, the library community was very excited to welcome even more artwork into their space. Find Art Here has offered Seniors that frequent Countee Cullen the enjoyment of conversations around LeRoy Clark’s Now (1970). Once the library reopens after a renovation project, the Studio Museum will collaborate with some of the seniors on an oral history and art–making project at the library.

2018-19 Inaugural year of Find Art Here

Find Art Here Booklet

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