PROVIDENCE and NEW YORK – The Rhode Island School of Design’s Museum of Art today announced it has been awarded $1 million by The Andrew M. Mellon Foundation to support a three-year postdoctoral fellowship.

The fellowship will be a curatorial position in the Minskoff Center for Prints, Drawings and Photographs, which opened Sept. 27 on the fourth floor of the museum’s new Chace Center. The goal will be to increase academic use of the center’s collection by faculty and students at RISD and Brown University.

Since 1996, the museum has received several such Mellon grants, totaling $2.25 million, it said in a statement published by ArtDaily.org. That money has helped fuel a number of academic collaborations, including new courses, exhibitions and internships.

“In the 12 years since The RISD Museum first received support through the Mellon program, we have significantly expanded and strengthened our relationships with faculty at Brown and RISD,” said Hope Alswang, the museum’s director.

The museum’s importance goes far beyond RISD, according to Evelyn Lincoln, an associate Professor of art and architectural history and Italian studies at neighboring Brown University.

“In virtually every one of the courses I teach I depend on the tremendous resources available through the RISD Museum,” Lincoln said in a statement today. “The curators are deeply knowledgeable about their subjects, and engaged with every aspect of the students’ learning, interests, and performance.”

Rhode Island School of Design, incorporated in 1877, is dedicated to cultivating the arts of design and advancing public art education. Its RISD Museum of Art houses more than 80,000 works of art, from ancient Roman and Chinese sculpture to contemporary works in a wide range of media, and hosts a variety of special exhibitions, lectures, tours, concerts and other programs. Additional information is available at www.risd.edu and www.risdmuseum.org.

The Andrew M. Mellon Foundation, based in New York City, focuses on institution-building grants in higher education, scholarly communications, information technology, museums and art conservation, performing arts and the environment. Additional information is available at www.mellon.org.