Rep. Lewis to Be Recognized for Support of the Arts

WASHINGTON — Georgia Rep. John Lewis is known as a hero of the civil rights movement. On Friday he'll be thanked for his career support for the arts community, in honors to be presented at the Atlanta History Center.

The National Arts Advocacy Award is granted each year to a state or federal elected official who has shown long term support for government backing for arts and culture.

It is being awarded this year to Lewis by the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, a Washington organization that groups the arts councils of 56 states and localities, and the Illinois Arts Council Foundation, in cooperation with the Georgia Council for the Arts and the Atlanta History Center, Lewis said in a statement.

Lewis is the sponsor of legislation that would provide tax incentives to artists who donate work to museums or other non-profit institutions.

The legislation, called the Artist-Museum Partnership Act, is pending in the House.

Currently artists who donate their work are allowed to deduct only the cost of reproducing it - basically materials - for tax purposes. That has made it hard for some museums to attract donations from artists, Lewis said in a statement.

"Museums have suffered because this deduction is not fair to artists," Lewis said. "Local and regional museums, especially, have lost the chance to attract important works from artists they themselves helped nurture and develop. But more than that, the people of this nation are losing the treasures of American creativity and vision."

Under the act Lewis is sponsoring, artists could instead deduct for tax purposes the full market value of their work, a richer benefit and incentive to contribute.

"As a nation," Lewis said, "we must find a way to honor and cherish the works of our artists, to hold on to the treasures made by American hands, and display them in public places for the benefit of the whole nation."