The Getty Foundation has announced grants totaling $3.1 million to twenty-six Southern California arts institutions participating in a series of exhibitions on the post-World War II Los Angeles art scene.

The exhibitions will run concurrently from the fall of 2011 to the spring of 2012 as part of the Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980 initiative — the largest collaborative project ever undertaken by museums in the region. The grants, which will support the mounting of exhibitions and publication of catalogues, build on $3.6 million in grants awarded in 2008 and 2009 to fund research and planning of the exhibitions.

The grantees (and their exhibitions) include the Museum of Contemporary Art (California Art in the Age of Pluralism: 1974-1980); the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (California Design, 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way); the Orange County Museum of Art (State of Mind: New California Art Circa 1970); the Hammer Museum at UCLA (Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980); and the American Museum of Ceramic Art (Searching for Peace, Post WWII Innovations in Clay). In addition, the J. Paul Getty Museum will host a major survey of L.A. painting and sculpture from the 1940s to the 1970s, while the California African American Museum will mount an exhibition on community settings in which African-American artists were able to exhibit their work.

"It is thrilling to see how museums and other arts institutions in L.A. and all across Southern California — from Santa Barbara to San Diego to Palm Springs — are joining together to showcase the region's incredibly vibrant postwar artistic scene," said Getty Foundation director Deborah Marrow. "It is the Getty Foundation's privilege to support this very important collaborative effort that shows the pivotal leadership role played by Los Angeles in the arts, in the past as well as today."