About Three Arts Scholarship Fund

The Three Arts Scholarship Fund, Inc. was dedicated to providing scholarships to female/identify as female undergraduate juniors and seniors and Master’s degree candidates majoring in the disciplines of Drama, Musical Theater, Dance, Vocal Music, Instrumental Music, or Visual Arts at accredited colleges and universities within a 75-mile radius of downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. 

The Three Arts Scholarship Fund, Inc. was a federally tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code, legally dissolved in 2024. As of 2025, all scholarship awards are issued by Greater Cincinnati Foundation in 3Arts' name.

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Our Beginnings: By 1911, Cincinnati, Ohio had proven itself a center of cultural activity as its Conservatory of Music (1868), College of Music (1878), (both merged into ​Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in 1955), May Festival (1873), Art Museum (1881), and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (1895) were well established and flourishing.  A small group of women felt that out-of-town female students needed to be able to find affordable housing in a nurturing atmosphere which offered guidance, counseling, and opportunities to apply for scholarships and loans.  This was modeled after The Three Arts Club of New York established in 1902.  The Cincinnati idea resulted in the founding and incorporation of the Three Arts Club of Cincinnati on May 9, 1911.  As the project expanded, the Club briefly rented a house on Auburn Avenue.  Later a house on Upland Place was purchased, and the final residence was located at a double-house at 198-200 East McMillan Street in Cincinnati's Clifton area from September 1922 - May/June 1954.

More than 1240 women lived in the Clubhouses. As alternative housing and dormitories became available, the Clubs' assets were sold and invested in a trust in 1953, which was expanded by several other bequests to become the Three Arts Scholarship Fund, Inc.  We perpetually thank the Louis & Louise Nippert Foundation for their original investment in 3Arts that helped ensure our gift scholarships continued.  Every year scholarships are awarded to junior and senior college women in the areas of Music, Musical Theater and Drama, and Visual Arts.

Past winners have included Kathleen Battle, Barbara Daniels, Petah Coyne, Sarah Voght, Chauntel McKensie, Anna Polusmiak Shelest, Denise Devlin, and Catherine Keen.

Three Arts Club's double-house home at 198-200 East McMillan St in Cincinnati's Clifton area from Sept 1922 - May/June 1954 (1899 photo)

Three Arts Club's building sale 1953-1954

Three Arts Scholarship Fund Historical Newspaper Articles