Foundations of American art scholarship

Grants and fellowships from three different foundations amounting annually to $15-$20 million support scholarship on the art of the United States. To a large extent this private funding has subsidized the growth and maturation of the field. The three organizations providing this money principally the Luce, Terra, and Wyeth Foundations are strikingly different in terms of their founders, priorities, sizes, programs, administrative organizations, and effects. What are the ramifications of this abundance of private funding in the field of US art history? Have the priorities of the foundations become the priorities of the field?