The call has gone out from the National Endowment for the Humanities for artists submissions for the Garden of American Heroes, President Trump’s proposed national park, location to be determined, of 250 statues of American figures considered heroes. Winners of statue grants, which range from $200 and $600,000, will create up to three life-size statues that “realistically” depict one of the people on this National Register list.
Ultimately, who each artist will depict will be decided for them: “Applicants are asked to select ten to twenty figures from those listed in the Executive Order and NEH will determine which statues are to be created by each award recipient,” states the application. The list includes a wide range of names, including George Washington, Martin Luther King, Elvis Presley, Susan B. Anthony, Kobe Bryant, Alex Trebek, Frederick Douglass, Albert Einstein, Ray Charles, Julia Child, and Billie Holiday to name a few. The list is said to have been the responsibility of Vince Haley, the chair of the president’s Domestic Policy Council, according to the New York Times. The finished statues must be made of marble, granite, bronze, copper or brass, sourced and funded by each artist, and completed by July 4, 2026.
The Garden of American Heroes, first announced back in 2020 during President Trump’s first term, is intended to coincide with the 250th anniversary of American independence. A release published on April 24th stated that this “special funding opportunity” would support the creation of statues depicting those who have “contributed to our cultural, scientific, economic, and political heritage,” and will fill a “space where Americans can gather to learn about and honor American heroes.”
Beyond a critique of the meaning of the word hero, there has been a loud outcry over the funding of the project, which as the Times reported, comes in part from the $34 million “committed jointly by the N.E.H. and the National Endowment for the Arts, each of which had a budget of $207 million last year.” This comes after 80% of N.E.H. staff were placed on administrative leave earlier this month, according to NPR, and most of its grants were canceled.
“Nearly half of the NEH’s budget goes directly to humanities councils in every U.S. state and jurisdiction,” writes Elizabeth Blair, Culture Trends correspondent for NPR. “The endowment also supports museums, libraries, preservation, history and media projects through a competitive application process.”
The widespread impact of the cuts is an unfolding story. In the short-term, myriad projects in the works have lost funding, like Yuriko Romer’s, a documentary on “baseball’s role in American-Japanese relations over the past 150 years,” writes The Atlantic. Instead, the funding will go toward “a sprawling sculpture garden with 250 likenesses of people [President Trump] deems ‘American heroes.’”
