For forty years, the Philip Morris family of companies has been a pioneer in supporting the arts. Its first grant, made by Philip Morris Incorporated, was in 1958 for an outdoor concert in its hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, and the companies have since developed the leading corporate arts support program in the world.

Today, Philip Morris Companies Inc. is the world's largest producer and marketer of consumer packaged goods including such well-known brands as Marlboro, Kraft, Miller, Post and Maxwell House. The qualities that guide the successful growth of Philip Morris' businesses - innovation, creativity and diversity - also serve as the cornerstone of its cultural program.
Philip Morris' program focuses on supporting innovative exhibitions and dance organizations. This tradition began with the pioneering exhibition Pop and Op in 1965 and continued with such seminal museum exhibitions as Two Centuries of Black American Art (1976) and Henri Matisse: A Retrospective (1992). As one of the leading corporate supporters of dance in the world, Philip Morris has sponsored the U.S. and international tours of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre and Dance Theatre of Harlem since the early 1980's. The company is also a leading sponsor of such avant-garde performing arts series as The NEXT WAVE Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Spoleto Festivals in South Carolina and Italy. In addition, Philip Morris gives general operating support to a variety of music, theater and opera organizations.

Through the arts, Philip Morris celebrates and embraces the diversity of its heritage and fosters values important to its communities around the world. Recent sponsorships focusing on international and cultural exchange range from support for the U.S. tour of China's first modern dance company, to performances by Alvin Ailey in Prague, to an exhibition of emerging Mexican artists in Puerto Rico.

Philip Morris Companies Inc. has five principal operating companies: Kraft Foods, Inc. (comprising Kraft Foods North America and Kraft Foods International); Miller Brewing Company; Philip Morris International Inc.; Philip Morris Incorporated (PM USA); and Philip Morris Capital Corp.

Credits: Top left: For Love , James Rosenquist, 1965, silkscreen on paper; above left: Ralph Lemon Company. photo: Fred Slavin; top right: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. photo James McLaughlin; above right: Homage to Mary Lou, Romare Bearden, 1985, Lithograph