The Dia Artwork Basis will give out a serious new worldwide artwork prize, the Sam Gilliam Award, starting in spring 2024, with the profitable artist receiving $75,000. The annual prize, to be given out for ten years, is made doable by a donation from the property of Sam Gilliam, the Washington Colour College artist recognized for his large-scale work on formed, draped and in any other case unconventionally displayed canvases. In 2021, the yr earlier than he died, Dia acquired one in every of Gilliam’s most bold and vital works, Double Merge (1968).
“Exhibiting at Dia Beacon was a proud second for Sam, and he can be delighted that his legacy will now proceed there in such a strong manner,” Annie Gawlak, the artist’s widow, stated in a press release. “Having obtained awards himself, at a number of pivotal moments in his profession—which allowed Sam to determine a studio, go away his instructing place and create a house for his household—the wide-reaching influence of those types of assist and recognition have been actually appreciated by Sam and by these most vital to him.”
Standards for the Sam Gilliam Award are pretty broad: the prize will probably be given yearly to a person artist who could be primarily based wherever on this planet, who has “made a big contribution” inside any inventive style or medium and for whom profitable the prize would have a “transformative” influence, per Dia’s announcement. A world panel of nominators will compile a long-list of candidates, which a panel of 5 jurors will then pare down to at least one winner.
“Gilliam was actually one of the vital vital figures in American summary artwork, in addition to notoriously beneficiant and supportive of his fellow artists,” Jessica Morgan, Dia’s director, stated in a press release.
The $75,000 in prize cash immediately makes the Sam Gilliam Award one of the vital financially important artwork prizes within the US, the place solely a handful of awards out there to artists—just like the $100,000 Nasher Prize or the $250,000 Heinz Awards—contain bigger sums.
