Outreach Programs

Unique and Free Educational Experiences for Classrooms Across the Region

The Taft's dedicated team of professional artists and educators help you create a well-rounded curriculum for your students through our Art for All Outreach and Artists Reaching Classrooms.

Art for All Outreach

Art for All provides a unique arts education experience to students who might have limited access to the arts. The program is designed for teachers whose classroom demographics demonstrate need, defined as greater than 50% of students receiving free/reduced price lunch. For this program, the Taft Museum of Art creates educational programming based on its special exhibitions.

Please note: activities are currently virtual only. Learn more here.

Each free program includes:

A virtual visit to the Taft Museum of Art, where students will tour the Taft and learn more about the Duncanson murals. Each 20-30 minute tour is grade-level specific and led by the Taft Museum of Art’s teaching artist. Live and pre-recorded options are available. This virtual tour focuses on the art and history behind the Taft murals and highlights cross-curricular themes including Cincinnati History, abolitionism, and Black History, landscape painting, and historic architecture.
A virtual school visit by a professional educator to lead an art-making project that coordinates with the virtual tour. Art supply packets will be safely packaged and delivered for distribution.

All costs are covered by the Taft, to include:

Virtual tour
Educational materials
All supplies and instruction for an art-making activity

If you would like to participate please contact outreach@taftmuseum.org to determine if your school is eligible.

Artists Reaching Classrooms

The Taft Museum of Art’s Artists Reaching Classrooms program (ARC) is a great way to enrich your curriculum and expand your students’ experience of the arts. All aspects of the program, including buses for field trips, are offered to participating schools free of charge.

ARC immerses high school art students in Cincinnati’s visual arts community and exposes them to careers in the arts. Professional artists visit classrooms to talk with the students about both the creative and practical aspects of a career in art. The program includes opportunities to visit an artist’s studio, such as a painter’s atelier, a glassworks, or a fine arts pressworks.

Students are expected to complete a research project on an object from the Taft Museum of Art’s collection, describe its history and significance, and explain why the artwork has personal appeal. Each classroom receives a set of Museum catalogues.

As a final project, students are asked to make artworks in response to the ARC experience and write artists’ statements demonstrating what they have learned. The program culminates in a professionally organized exhibition of selected student artwork.