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About Us

www.blakemorefoundation.org
Email: blakemore@perkinscoie.com

The Blakemore Foundation
1201 Third Avenue, Suite 4800
Seattle, Washington 98101-3266
Phone: (206) 359-8778    Fax:  (206) 359-9778
Administrative Management

Griffith Way, Trustee
Cathy Scheibner, Administrative Assistant

 
The Blakemore Foundation is a Section 501(c)(3) charitable trust established in 1990 by Thomas and Frances Blakemore. See our Founders page for biographical information on the Blakemores, two Americans from rural Oklahoma and Washington who spent over 50 years living and working in Asia.

Their legacy, the Blakemore Foundation, makes grants for the advanced study of East and Southeast Asian languages and to improve the understanding of Asian fine art in the United States. Located in Seattle, Washington, the Foundation is managed by a Trustee and a Board of Managers.

Since 1990, the Foundation has awarded over $11.2 million in language grants. Blakemore Freeman Fellowships and Blakemore Refresher Grants are awarded to graduate students and professionals whose careers would benefit from fluency in an East or Southeast Asian language. Blakemore Fellows spend up to a year abroad in full-time intensive language study in programs such as the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies in Yokohama and the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Annual Report
Founders
Board

 "It’s not just a matter of improvement, but rather more like having blinders lifted. I was a Chinese History Ph.D. student before I received the Blakemore grant and thought I had pretty much reached the level of Chinese I needed for research. I passively accepted the fact that Chinese was a confoundedly difficult language and there wasn’t much I could do about it. Now I walk down the aisles of books in the East Asian Reading Room and everything seems clear – I look at sources I struggled with a year ago, and the characters melt and give up their meanings. Inscrutable tomes are now full of stories. I no longer sit at a desk under the suspicious gaze of the librarian, pretending I understand what I’m looking at. Now I do understand. I read the papers. I seize random books from the shelves and pore through them. It is wonderful."
- final report of Blakemore language grant recipient

Frances Blakemore Asian Art Grants promote the understanding of Asian fine art. Since 1998, the Foundation has awarded over $2.8 million in grants to organizations such as the Asia Society, the Smithsonian, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, as well as the Seattle Art Museum, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, and the University of California Press. Sample grants include awards to the China Institute in America for their exhibition Brilliant Artifacts from Shandong: Palaces of the Afterlife in the Western Han Dynasty to smaller projects such as travel funds for scholars from Southeast Asia to participate in a symposium of The Textile Society of America.

bulletBlakemore Freeman Fellowships for Advanced Asian Language Study and Blakemore Refresher Grants are awarded to individuals successfully pursuing academic, business, or professional careers involving Asia who realize that language study abroad at an advanced level is essential to reaching their goals.

Click here to read more about the Blakemore language grants.

bulletFrances Blakemore Asian Art Grants are awarded to museums, universities, and other tax-exempt educational or art-related institutions in the United States for exhibits, educational programs or publications dealing with the fine arts of East and Southeast Asia.

Read more about the Frances Blakemore Asian Art Grants here.

 

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Last modified: 08/20/2007
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