Grants

Grant Recipients in 2006

burckhardt $10,000

Rudy Burckhardt1914-1999

Note
Museum of the City of New York
Location
New York, NY

$10,000 toward an exhibition on the painter/photographer with accompanying gallery guide and related public programs, organized by museum curator Bob Shamis. Born in Basel, Switzerland, Burckhardt moved to New York in 1935 to pursue his interests in photography and filmmaking. His signature photographs of the city’s architecture, barbershops, and crowds, as well as his portraits of seminal art figures, were composed with an appreciation for abstraction and created a new perspective of New York and its art world.

cain $15,000

Peter Cain1959-1997

Location
New York, NY

$15,000 toward a catalogue raisonné on the painter, written by art historian Eileen Costello and published by Steidl Verlag. Native to New Jersey, Cain had one person shows in New York and California and participated in numerous group shows nationally and abroad. Aside from three monumental portraits of his companion Sean, Cain’s paintings are void of human presence. His images of cars, morphed into almost unrecognizable shapes, as well as depictions of mini-marts and gas stations that lack any logos or typography, produce disorienting and surreal effects through their flat, spliced imagery, and unexpected orientation on the canvas.

cortez $12,500

Carlos Cortéz1924-2005

Note
Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum
Location
Chicago, IL

$12,500 to catalogue, archive, and present the museum’s recently acquired collection of the artist’s work, organized by permanent collections director Rebecca Myers. Cortéz lived and worked in Chicago as an artist, teacher, laborer and social activist. His work took many forms including painting, photography and poetry, but his primary expression was through printmaking due to the ease with which it spreads social messages quickly and inexpensively. Using print blocks he created from discarded pieces of wood, furniture and linoleum scraps, Cortéz explored a style that was influenced by German expressionists and printmakers of the Mexican Revolution.

dickerson $15,000

Paul Dickerson1961-1997

Note
Paul Dickerson Studio Art Museum
Location
South Haven, MI

$15,000 toward the costs associated with presenting Paul Dickerson: As Art, an exhibition with accompanying catalogue at the Betty Rymer Gallery of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as for an electronic archive, organized by Barbara Houlberg, Alison Green, Neil Scriptunas and Rymer gallery director Trevor Martin. Originally from Chicago, Dickerson developed his career in New York City. Fascinated by perception and form, Dickerson reconfigured found objects and materials such as salt, shrink wrap and dentil resin into abstract wall and floor pieces that negotiated a unique balance between humor and tragedy.

driggs $15,000

Elsie Driggs1898-1992

Note
James A. Michener Art Museum
Location
Doylestown, PA

$15,000 toward a restrospective exhibition on the painter with accompanying catalogue, organized by museum curator Constance Kimmerle.. Born in New York City, Driggs was exposed to machine age designs by her father, an engineer and inventor and was perhaps best known for her precisionist paintings of airplanes, bridges, and steel mills in Pittsburgh. Also a mother and wife, Driggs often painted solely from her kitchen delicately producing small watercolors and collage of plant-life and insects.

ford $12,500

Gordon Onslow Ford1912-2003

Note
Lucid Art Foundation
Location
Inverness, CA

$12,500 to document the artwork and archives of the painter, organized by foundation director Fariba Bogzaran and registrar Mark Smith. A British-born American, Ford lived and worked in Paris, New York City, and San Francisco before ultimately settling in the hills of Inverness, CA. A member of the Surrealist group he greatly influenced artists in New York City through his lectures and the organization of Surrealist shows. His paintings of complex patterns with strange over-lapping units exemplify his interests in the relationship between art and conciousness, an invisible realm he referred to as the “inner-worlds.”

hague $15,000

Raoul Hague1905-1993

Note
Raoul Hague Foundation
Location
New York, NY

$15,000 to professionally photograph work by the sculptor, overseen by foundation directors Debra Balken, Holly Hughes, Michael Rubinstein and Peter Larkin. Hague created massive, abstract, wood sculpture, carved largely from tree-trunk bases weighing up to 700 pounds each. He was born in Constantinople and worked as a figurative sculptor early in his New York City career. In the 1940s, he moved to Woodstock, NY where he spent the rest of his life.

huebler $5,000

Douglas Huebler1924-1997

Note
Afterall Books / Central St. Martins College of Art & Design/Univ. of the Arts London
Location
London, England

$5,000 toward the research, photography, and reproduction rights associated with a publication on the artist’s 1971 photographic work Variable Piece #70, organized by managing editor Caroline Woodley and written by art historian Mark Godfrey. Huebler was an important figure in post-war American art and was involved in a variety of movements, including abstract expressionism, minimalism, and most notably conceptually-inspired photography. Many of his photographs document people participating in various activities. Variable Piece #70, was Huebler’s attempt to photograph everyone alive on the planet.

hultberg $15,500

John Philip Hultberg1922-2005

Location
New York, NY

$15,500 for costs associated with the safekeeping and cataloguing of the painter’s work, organized by Elaine R. Wechsler. Hultberg was born in Berkeley, CA and studied at the San Francisco School of Fine Art, before moving to the east coast. He emerged as a prominent expressionist painter in New York City during the early 1950s. Combining both figurative and abstract imagery that depicted deep space with dramatic angles and colors, Hultberg created hauntingly beautiful paintings that had a science fiction-like atmosphere.

johnson $11,500

Ray Johnson1927-1995

Note
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art
Location
Memphis, TN

$11,500 toward the acquisition of a collage by the artist for the museum’s permanent collection, selected by museum curator Marina Pacini. Johnson was an enigmatic art world figure who has been called the “most famous unknown artist.” He is remembered for his role in the early development of Pop Art and “mail art” (collage sent via the U.S. Postal Service). Johnson ultimately withdrew from others and the art world yet continued to create works of art.

kilgallen $15,000

Margaret Kilgallen1967-2001

Note
Armand Hammer Museum of Art
Location
Los Angeles, CA

$15,000 toward the acquisition of the 2000 mixed media drawing Money to Loan by the painter for the museum’s permanent collection, selected by museum curator Gary Garrels. Through their simple forms, flat color and line, Kilgallen’s paintings and wall installations explore the culture of immigrants, railway workers and everyday people and bring to light the personal tales and letterforms of American folk traditions buried beneath official history.

mertin $15,000

Roger Mertin1943-2001

Note
George Eastman House
Location
Rochester, NY

$15,000 to transport, store, catalogue and scan work from the museum’s recently acquired archive of the photographer’s work, organized by staffmembers Alison Nordström, Rick Hock, Roger Bruce and David Wooters. Mertin was a faculty member at the University of Rochester, and was an honored recipient of many fellowships, including the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEA. A first generation MFA graduate in photography, he used large format prints to explore visual idioms of the American social landscape documenting Christmas decorations, rural libraries, suburban trees and basketball hoops.

norman $12,500

Irving Norman1906-1989

Note
Crocker Art Museum
Location
Sacramento, CA

$12,500 toward Irving Norman: Paintings of Our Time, an exhibition on the painter with accompanying catalogue, organized by museum curator Scott A. Shields and Hela Norman. Born in Poland, Norman came to the United States in 1923 and as a painter, explored representational imagery with a strong social message. He served as an American volunteer for the international brigade and his response to the atrocities of war are reflected in the monumental scale of his paintings, which depict teams of swarming figures, clone-like in their repetition, constricted by small urban spaces, city streets, and subways.

slobodkina $3,000

Esphyr Slobodkina1908-2002

Note
Hillwood Art Museum - Long Island University
Location
Brookville, NY

$3,000 toward the restoration of three paintings by the artist, organized by Jonathan Sherman of Sherman Art Conservation. Born in Siberia, Slobodkina immigrated to New York in 1928 and became a founding member (later president) of the American Abstract Artists group. Using a personal technique of transferring preparatory drawings onto gesso-covered board, Slobodkina created paintings in a flat, abstract style that incorporates line and suspended or interlocking forms with pure, unmodulated color.

soto-sanchez $10,000

Jorge Soto-Sanchez1947-1987

Note
Association of Hispanic Arts
Location
New York, NY

$10,000 for the immediate conservation needs of the painter/sculptor’s work, organized by AHA director Nicholas Arture, art historian Mario Cesar-Romero and the artist’s family members. Of Puerto Rican decent, Soto-Sanchez was raised in New York City and lived in a bi-cultural environment. His paintings of voluminous figures, repeatedly outlined in tight urban environments, combine images of Afro-Puerto Rican artifacts, lettering from subway graffiti, and themes that relate to Santería. Soto-Sanchez spiritually and intellectually articulated the transnational evolution of Latino demographics in the United States.

washington $11,000

James W. Washington, Jr.1911-2000

Note
James W. Washington, Jr. Foundation
Location
Seattle, WA

$11,000 toward the conservation and digital documentation of the sculptor’s work and archives in preparation for a website and DVD, organized by Bonita Carter-Smith, Timothy Detweiler, and Phillip Reay. Washington was a self-taught artist who grew up in rural Mississippi before settling in Seattle during the early 1940s. Initially a painter and printmaker, it was not until he discovered stone in Mexico City that he became a sculptor, creating deeply symbolic, totem-like works of animals that express the spiritual connections of people and nature.

welty $12,000

Eudora Welty1909-2001

Note
Worcester Art Museum
Location
Worcester, MA

$12,000 to acquire two photographs from the 1930s for the museum’s permanent collection, selected by museum curator David Acton. Welty studied in Wisconsin and New York City before settling in Jackson, MS where she pursued careers as both a writer and a photographer. Chronicling depression-era life in the South, her photographs, which she sometimes referred to as “snapshots,” poignantly capture her subjects’ public and private moments in a sensitive and compassionate way.

z_group_e $15,000

Group Exhibition

Note
Kentucky Folk Art Center - Morehead State University
Location
Morehead, KY

$15,000 toward Slow Time: The Works of Charley Kinney and Noah Kinney, an exhibition on the artists Charley Kinney (1906-1991) and Noah Kinney (1912-1991) with accompanying catalogue and related public programs, organized by museum curator Adrian Swain. Despite being brothers living in close proximity, the Kinneys developed work that was remarkably unique. Charley created bold tempera paintings with supernatural imagery of local lore, historical events and his environment, while Noah constructed painted wooden sculptures of domestic and exotic animals, reliefs of traditional life and life-sized human figures.

z_group_p $20,000

Group Publication

Note
Columbus Museum of Art
Location
Columbus, OH

$15,000 for the research necessary to prepare a publication on the museum’s recently acquired Schiller Collection of Art of Social Consciousness, 1930-1970 comprised of the work of approximately 300 artists, organized by museum curator Melissa Wolfe. This award is for those costs associated with the research and evaluation required to select artists to be included in the book. The grant will be used to obtain a temporary archivist to study and photograph the following American artists who are under-recognized and recently deceased:

Group Publication

Note
American Abstract Artists/Fracture Atlas
Location
New York, NY

$5,000 toward On Edge: American Abstract Artists Journal #5, edited by Martha Keller and Gail Gregg with sponsorship by Fractured Atlas. American Abstract Artists is an artist run organization that was founded in 1936 to expand ideas and promote the exposure of abstract and non-objective art. This journal edition will include entries on the following recently deceased and under-recognized artists: Clinton Hill (1922-2003), Ward Jackson (1928-2004), Ibram Lassaw (1913-2003), Clement Meadmore (1929-2005), Peter Pinchbeck (1931-2000), Beatrice Riese (1917-2004) and Esphyr Slobodkina (1908-2002).

Total: $240,500