The Terra Foundation for American Art was created in 1978 by Daniel J. Terra. The governing mission of the nascent foundation was to promote a greater understanding and appreciation of the country’s rich artistic and cultural heritage through the acquisition, preservation, exhibition, interpretation, research, and scholarship of works of American art. This goal was first put into practice with Terra's own growing American art collection and the museum in which he planned to house it. In 1978, the Tera Museum of American Art was founded in Evanston, Illinois in 1980. The museum relocated to Chicago in 1987, and closed in 2004. A lawsuit regarding the closing was settled that year with the foundation required to stay in the state of Illinois for 50 years. In 2004, the foundation decided to lend, after its museum closed, about fifty paintings at any one time to the Art Institute of Chicago. The foundation also made a long-term loan to the Art Institute of all of the foundation's works on paper, approximately 350 works, to be available for study at the Art Institute’s Department of Prints and Drawings. The initial group of paintings became part of a combined installation of American art that opened to the public in April 2005. Wikipedia [ - ]

The Terra Foundation for American Art was created in 1978 by Daniel J. Terra. The governing... [ + ]