In the midst of Trump cutbacks, officials resign from the national gift for art

A group of senior officials from the National Endowment for the Arts announced their resignation on Monday, days after the Trump government began to withdraw subsidies from art groups throughout the country.

Their departure, which come as the donation Revoke current subsidy offers and President Trump has suggested Eliminate the desk completely Next year on Monday became public in a series of e -mails and messages on social media.

A NEA spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comments.

Among those who leave the agency are directors who supervise subsidies for dance, design, folk and traditional arts and theater, as well as the director of the ‘Partnership’ division, who supervises work with national and local art agencies. Those officials announced their departure in newsletters sent by the donation from the afternoon on Monday.

The head of the Literary Arts Division of the Bureau also leaves, together with three members of her team, according to a newsletter sent by Litnet on Monday morning, a coalition of literary organizations.

The announcement of their departure left the besieged agency that was confronted even more uncertainty. It is not clear how or or the agency would give subsidies without these low officials. A round of subsidy announcements that on Friday evening indicated that the agency expected to continue to provide subsidies, but prioritized in areas by Mr Trump.

Oskar Eustis, the artistic director of the Public Theater in New York and one of the leaders of the professional non-profit theater coalition, said that the resignation of the staff was ‘worrying’. He added that although he did not criticize anyone before leaving, he feared that the departure could make it easier to eliminate the desk.

Mr. Eustis denounced the cancellation of the financing that had already been promised, which he said it was particularly painful for small art organizations throughout the country.

“This is not an attentive, targeted reassessment of what the NEA should support this is a huge all over the board clawback of money awarded to theaters throughout the country, many of whom depend on this money,” he said. “For the NEA to do this is to undermine the starting point on which it was established. They undermine and destabilizing institutions throughout the country, in every conference district.”

Many of the departing officials leave the donation at the end of this month as part of a postponed dismissal program; Some retire. In many cases not only the artistic field directors leave, but that also applies to their staff.

The National Endowment for the Arts Endowment, founded in 1965, is an independent federal agency that divides subsidies to art organizations and state art agencies throughout the country. The budget was $ 207 million in 2024, and his financial report said that year it had provided More than $ 163 million in subsidies.

Art institutions throughout the country climb during the weekend to find out how they could continue without federal financing on which they would have counted.

Some said they would appeal against the refusal of subsidies, as specified in the reports of the cancellations. Others launched fundraising professions and tried to fill the gap with private philanthropy.

In Oregon, Portland Playhouse said that donors had been performed to replace a withdrawn NEA subsidy of $ 25,000 with a production of August Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s come and gone” afterwards News about the cut became public. On Monday, the leadership of the theater that it started a campaign on fundraising throughout the state in an attempt to help other art organizations in Oregon, which was estimated that the NEA-Subsidy annulations had ended at least $ 590,000 in art financing in that State.