AAR Experience Packages

Immerse yourself in bespoke opportunities with Academy Fellows and Residents while providing important funding to support our mission and programs.

View all Experience Packages and Support Opportunities here. Select items are available for purchase today. The silent auction closes at the end of the New York Gala on November 2.

Explore behind the Scenes

Minimum Bid: $5,000
Buy It Now: $10,000

Lecture and viewing of Shakespeare’s first folio and other precious texts in Harvard’s Houghton Rare Book Library with Professor Stephen Greenblatt, 2010 Resident.

Minimum Bid: $5,000
Buy It Now: $10,000

Exclusive tour of Lincoln Center’s newly redesigned David Geffen Hall lobby and public spaces with architects Billie Tsien, 2000 Resident, and Tod Williams, 1983 Fellow.

Minimum Bid: $1,000
Buy It Now: $2,000

Behind-the-scenes tour of the Nubia: Jewels of Ancient Sudan exhibition (November 2022–April 2023) at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, CA with Curator of Antiquities, Claire Lyons, 2022 Resident.

Recent Fellows at Work
Minimum Bid: $1,000
Buy It Now: $2,000

The voice of Ariadne lamenting on the shore of Naxos has been an obsessive presence in poetry and music since classical antiquity. Ariadne’s Echo retells the story of the abandoned heroine through a selection of poetry and vocal music from the Baroque age. The program draws on research conducted by Eugenio Refini, 2022 Fellow. This musical journey includes works by Claudio Monteverdi, Luigi Rossi, Giacomo Carissimi, and Marco Marazzoli, most of which are presented for the first time in the US. You will have the exclusive opportunity to attend a private performance for American Academy in Rome guests and a discussion with Dr. Refini and the performers.

Minimum Bid: $1,000
Buy It Now: $2,000

Visit Otero-Pailos Studio in Port Chester, NY to view the works of Jorge Otero-Pailos, 2022 Resident, in progress. The Otero-Pailos Studio is dedicated to investigating art as a form of experimental preservation, with the belief that monuments can be powerful agents for cultural connection, questioning, and understanding. Includes a signed copy of Otero-Pailos’s book Distributed Monuments, 2021.

Minimum Bid: $1,500
Buy It Now: $3,000

Two VIP tickets to Bang on a Can’s Loud Weekend (Thursday through Saturday of the last weekend in July 2023) at MASS MoCA and a visit with Bang on a Can founder David Lang, 1991 Fellow and 2017 Resident and artist Suzanne Bocanegra, 1991 Fellow.

Minimum Bid: $12,500
Buy It Now: $25,000

Spend two nights at the Villa Aurelia with a tour by Academy Director Aliza Wong followed by aperitivi at the Villino Bellacci, lunch in the McKim, Mead, & White building cortile with Rome Prize Winners, and a cooking class with Rome Sustainable Food Project chef Fausto Ferraresi.

Art

Minimum Bid: $10,000
Buy It Now: $25,000

Your portrait painted by Beverly McIver, 2018 Fellow, who is widely acknowledged as a significant presence in contemporary American art.

Opening Bid: $1,125
Buy It Now: $2,500

Lyle Ashton Harris, 2001 Fellow
Untitled (Dead Sea)
2017, archival inkjet print on hotpress bright
Unframed
11⅛ x 8 in.
Edition 14 of 15

Opening Bid: $9,000
Buy It Now: $18,000

Lyle Ashton Harris, 2001 Fellow
Polizia (Mille Luce)
Taken in Rome while artist was a fellow at the Academy
2001, Black and white gelatin silver print
Unframed
20 x 16 in.
Edition 9 of 10

Recent Fellows at Work
Minimum Bid: $5,000
Buy It Now: $10,000

Choose from among these six sketches of buildings in Rome by 2022 Fellows Keith Mitnick and Mireille Roddier for a bespoke piece approximately 28" x 38". This is a hand-cut, one of a kind photo-construction. The original image is printed on heavy, cotton paper and then cut up and reassembled into a slightly distorted image comprised of a seemingly infinitesimal number of slices.

Final, unframed piece will differ from the sketch and size will vary due to proportions of the original image.

Eat and Meet

Minimum Bid: $2,500
Buy It Now: $5,000

Farm dinner, VIP tour, and one-night stay for two at Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming in Cold Spring, NY.

Minimum Bid: $3,000
Buy It Now: $6,000

Supper for six with wine pairings at The Café at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA, and a book of your choice signed by Alice Waters, founder of the Rome Sustainable Food Project.

Minimum Bid: $1,000
Buy It Now: $2,000

Tour for five of Caffè Panna’s ice cream making process with Rome Sustainable Food Project-trained owner, Hallie Meyer, with affogatos and sundaes for all.

Live Auction

Minimum Bid: $7,500

Invite your guests to a catered dinner in the 78-79 floor home of trustee Bill Cameron and Anna Cameron in the much anticipated new tower soaring over Central Park at 111 W 57 Street with the building’s architect, Gregg Pasquarelli of SHoP Architects.

Minimum Bid: $6,000

Enjoy a private tour of Antinori nel Chianti Classico Winery followed by an exclusive tour of the famed Tignanello Estate cellar and an exquisite lunch with wine pairings in the private Antinori family Villa Tignanello.

Minimum Bid: $6,000

Includes Three Experiences:

The Art of Conservation at the Whitney

Recent Fellows at Work

Explore the Bucksbaum, Learsy, Scanlan Conservation Center and the Sandra Gilman Works of Art on Paper Study Center at the Whitney Museum with Associate Director for Conservation and Research, Carol Mancusi-Ungaro, 2022 Fellow.

The visit is valid for up to 10 adults. Museum admission. Visit must be scheduled during regular museum hours.

Paola Prestini’s Con Alma

Attend a rehearsal with composer Paola Prestini, 2022 Resident, and Grammy-winning jazz singer Magos Herrera, plus two tickets to the live performance of their Con Alma project, co-presented by Carnegie Hall. Con Alma is an album and live digital experience of original works by Prestini and Herrera, along with some classics from the Mexican and Jazz songbook, created and recorded remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, that explores the question of how we can find communion in a time of isolation.

Dinner and Danny

Dinner for four at Maialino (vicino) with a visit by restaurateur Danny Meyer.

Support Opportunities

Rome Prize Fellows working across eleven academic and artistic disciplines pursue their work in an atmosphere conducive to intellectual and artistic freedom and interdisciplinary exchange. Each year, about thirty artists and scholars live and work together on Rome’s Janiculum Hill, exploring projects and themes as diverse as medieval piracy to fascist monuments to the musicality of ancient aqueducts. By supporting this program—truly at the heart of the Academy’s mission—you help to ensure the continued vitality of this precious resource for artists and scholars.

Designed by architect Michael Graves, the Barbara Goldsmith Rare Book Room is a state-of-the-art rare book room with controlled temperature and humidity, custom shelving, and bespoke lighting, all designed to enhance the life of the books and the experience of studying them. Help ensure the continued vitality of the Library for Fellows and the public by naming one of the seven Graves-designed chairs in this special part of the Academy’s library. The Rare Book Collection includes early editions of Greek and Latin authors, early treatises on art and architecture, compendia of antiquities, guidebooks to Rome, as well as pop-up and artist’s books. This is an opportunity to honor great teachers, mentors, colleagues, friends, or family with a seat that is sure to be filled by great scholars for generations to come.

Now celebrating its 15th year, the Rome Sustainable Food Project founded by Alice Waters is a collaborative dining program that nourishes and supports both work and conviviality. As such, it is an extension of the Academy’s intellectual and humanistic values. Make a gift to support the RSFP’s core initiatives: a sustainable kitchen, garden, internship program, local and organic food supplies, and much more.

Providing room and board for the Rome Prize Winners at the Academy provides them time and space to pursue their work. This year we have 12 Fellows who have brought their families with them to Rome. By supporting Friday dinners you enable families to join at no extra cost, thus creating a positive experience for all, and in turn encouraging artists and scholars of all backgrounds to consider applying for the Rome Prize.

Each fall and spring the Fellows are invited on trips to other areas of Italy to explore important artistic and historic sites, visit artist studios, and learn about local materials and artisanal traditions. Led by the Academy Director, these are exceptional opportunities for inspiration, learning, research and collaboration. By supporting Fellows Trips you can remove the financial barrier for Fellows to participate so the trips become an essential part of the Rome Prize experience for Fellows of all economic backgrounds.

If you have visited the Academy, you know how integral a stop by the bar for one of Gabri’s espressos is to one’s time there. The chance encounters with other residents, a moment to chat about the day’s plans, or to enjoy a coffee in the solitude of the cortile, these are the kind of casual interactions that are made exceptional at the AAR. Make everyone’s day by offering a no-cost espresso to the Academy community for one day a week for a month!