In 2007, Artists’ Legacy Foundation created the Artist Award to recognize and honor accomplishments of an outstanding visual artist whose primary medium is painting or sculpture. Each year ten artists, either painters or sculptors, are proposed for the ALF Artist Award by five anonymous nominators selected by the board. The nominators and the jurors are art world peers chosen for their expertise. A jury of three peers makes the final selection. The award is $25,000, and there are no restrictions on the use of funds by the recipient.
2023 Artist Award Program
As part of the 2023 Artist Award program, we recorded a conversation with Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and Squeak Carnwath. They discuss Smith’s artwork, curatorial work, inspiration, and life experiences, all of which influence her ongoing practice.
RECIPIENTS
JAUNE QUICK-TO-SEE SMITH
2023
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith offers poignant perspectives on social issues, politics, and the environment, and critically examines representations of Native Americans in pop culture and art.
JUAN SÁNCHEZ
2022
Juan Sánchez is an influential Nuyorican artist who explores ethnic, racial, and national identity in his multimedia work.
NANCY RUBINS
2021
Nancy Rubins creates dynamic sculptures and drawings that investigate the liminality between two-dimensionality and three-dimensionality, and the intersection of engineering and art.
PETER WILLIAMS
2020
Peter Williams’ vibrant paintings and works on paper combine allegorical tales, personal experiences, current events, and art historical references to actively confront subjects ranging from racism and oppression to environmental destruction.
HOWARDENA PINDELL
2019
Howardena Pindell’s multifacted practice uses abstraction as a way to broach difficult topics including racism, feminism, and exploitation.
NANCY CHUNN
2018
Nancy Chunn is acclaimed for her intricate, multilayered narrative paintings in which she wryly documents world events, history, and the power of the news media.
JUDITH LINHARES
2017
Judith Linhares is renowned for her ebullient, metaphysical depictions of women and animals painted in bright brushstrokes.
SUZAN FRECON
2016
Suzan Frecon is acclaimed for her complex, transporting abstract oil paintings and watercolors that reflect formal interests in color and stroke.
JIM NUTT
2015
Jim Nutt is noted for his intricate and psychological portraits of imaginary women.
MARY WEATHERFORD
2014
Mary Weatherford is noted for her emotionally charged and atmospheric Flashe on linen works that incorporate neon lighting tubes.
DONA NELSON
2013
Widely regarded as one of the most vital, intellectually considered, aggressively tactile and physically inventive American painters of her generation, Dona Nelson is also a highly regarded educator.
DONNA DENNIS
2012
A practicing artist for the past four decades, Donna Dennis is a Guggenheim fellow, multiple NEA grantee and Whitney Biennial alumnus.
JUDITH SHEA
2011
For more than three decades Judith Shea has made a study of the human form in many guises and materials.
JOHN OUTTERBRIDGE
2010
Drawing inspiration from Dada, folk art, and African sculpture, John Outterbridge recycles discarded materials, transforming them into poetic configurations that explore both social and political themes.
LLYN FOULKES
2009
Over the past five decades Llyn Foulkes has been consistently inconsistent, confounding critics and galleries with dramatic changes of direction whenever it seemed he was about to be overtaken by popular acclaim.
PETER SAUL
2008
Peter Saul is an American painter. Inspired equally by comic books and Surrealists, he become an unrelenting critic of various aspects of American culture.
KATHY BUTTERLY
2007
Kathy Butterly’s intricately decorated porcelain sculptures suggest feminine characteristics.
JURORS
2023 JURORS
Lewis deSoto (Cahuilla), born 1954, in San Bernardino, California is known for his installations, sculpture and public art that engages cosmological questions, notions of self, and plays with inherent phenomena. He was educated at UC Riverside and Claremont Graduate University. He taught at Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, WA, served as the Director of Graduate Studies at California College of Arts and Crafts and as is Professor Emeritus of Art at San Francisco State University. His work has been exhibited in Japan, Europe and the United States, at venues including the San José Institute of Contemporary Art, San José, CA; Wave Hill, Bronx, NY; Culver Center for the Arts, Riverside, CA; Art OMI International Art Center, Ghent, NY. His installations vary in theme and choice of materials. Since 1991, he has used sound elements in interior and exterior situations and has collaborated with mezzo-soprano Erin Neff on several works. Lewis deSoto’s work is in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Seattle Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles as well as many private collections. He is a recipient of the Flintridge Foundation Award for Visual Arts (2004), Fleishhacker Foundation Fellowship (1999), National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1996-97), and California Arts Council Fellowship. He lives with his wife, Chandra Cerrito, in Napa, California.
Brenda Goodman was born in 1943, in Detroit, Michigan. She received her BFA from the College of Creative Studies, from which she also received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts in 2017. After moving to New York City in 1976, her work was included in the 1979 Whitney Biennial and she has had 40 solo exhibitions. In 2015, a 50 year retrospective was presented at the Center for Creative Studies and Paul Kotula Projects. That same year, her work was included in the American Academy of Arts and Letters annual invitational where she received the Award in Art. Recent solo exhibitions were presented at David & Schweitzer Contemporary, New York; and Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson, NY. Jeff Bailey Gallery also presented a solo booth of Goodman’s work at NADA, NY in 2017. Recent and upcoming group shows include those at the Landing Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco, CA; September Gallery, Hudson, NY; and Hollis Taggart Gallery, NY. Goodman’s work is included in the public collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Santa Barbara Museum of Art; the Detroit Institute of Arts; Cranbrook Art Museum; and Wayne State University Art Collection. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Juan Sánchez was born in 1954, in Brooklyn, NY, to immigrant working-class Puerto Rican parents. An influential American visual artist working in a range of mediums, he is one of the most important Nuyorican cultural figures of the late 20th century. Maintaining an activist stance for over 45 years, he establishes his art as an arena of creative and political inquiry and reflection that encompasses the individual, family, the communities with which he engages, and the world at large. Sánchez has produced an extensive body of work that consistently addresses issues of race, class, cultural identity, equality, and self-determination. Sánchez has been awarded grants and fellowships including the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, Joan Mitchell Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, and Artists’ Legacy Foundation’s Artist Award, among others. He is the recipient of the 2020 CUAA Augustus Saint Gaulden Achievement in the Visual Art Award and is inducted into The Cooper Union Hall of Fame. In 2021, the United States Latinx Art Forum, New York City, in collaboration with the New York Foundation of the Arts and supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation, awarded the artist the Latinx Artist Fellowship. His work has been exhibited in the U.S., Latin America, Europe, and Africa, including solo exhibitions MoMA PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York; and Jersey City Museum, NJ. Sánchez’s art is represented in the permanent collections of El Centro Wilfredo Lam, Havana, Cuba; El Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico; El Museo del Barrio, Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art, all in New York City; and Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; among others. Sánchez earned a BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art in 1977, and an MFA from the Mason Gross School of the Arts of Rutgers University in 1980. He is Professor of Art at Hunter College, The City University of New York.
2022 JURORS
Derek Fordjour, artist
Miguel Luciano, artist and educator
Dr. Monica Ramirez-Montagut, museum director
2021 JURORS
Mary Ceruti, curator and museum director
Julia Couzens, artist and writer
Craig Nagasawa, artist and educator
2020 JURORS
Eve Aschheim, artist and educator
Valerie Cassel Oliver, curator
Dennis Elliott, artist and arts administrator
2019 JURORS
Greg Colson, artist
T.J. Dedeaux-Norris, artist
Melissa Meyer, artist
2018 JURORS
Elizabeth Neilson Armstrong, museum director and curator
Hung Liu, artist
Stephen Westfall, artist
2017 JURORS
Linda Fleming, artist
David Pagel, art critic, curator, and educator
Scott A. Shields, museum director, curator, and scholar
2016 JURORS
Michael Auping, curator and scholar
Suzanne Caporael, artist
Jane Hammond, artist
2015 JURORS
Julie Joyce, curator and writer
Lucinda Parker, artist
Peter Shelton, artist
2014 JURORS
Jennifer Gross, curator
Franklin Sirmans, curator, author, and museum director
Jodi Throckmorton, curator
2013 JURORS
Ron Bechet, artist
Sarah McEneaney, artist
Lawrence Rinder, curator and museum director
2012 JURORS
Bill Berkson, poet, art critic, and teacher
Lesley Dill, artist
Beverly McIver, artist
2011 JURORS
Nene Humphrey, artist
Katherine Sherwood, artist
Lilly Wei, independent curator, essayist and critic
2010 JURORS
Mildred Howard, artist
Barbara MacAdam, deputy editor of ARTnews
Robert Taplin, artist
2009 JURORS
Christopher Brown, artist
Michael Duncan, critic and independent curator
Judy Pfaff, artist
2008 JURORS
Polly Apfelbaum, artist
Richard Kalina, artist and critic
Gay Outlaw, artist
2007 JURORS
Mike Henderson, artist
Judith Shea, artist
John Yau, art critic, poet, essayist, and prose writer