Mildred Howard Wins Artists’ Legacy Foundation Award
Anonymous Was A Woman's environmental art grants, Art Gallery of Ontario director steps down, Alex Katz on PBS, and more in Art Movements.
Art Movements, published every Thursday afternoon, is a roundup of must-know news, appointments, awards, and other art-world happenings.
A Major Milestone for Mildred Howard
The Artists’ Legacy Foundation announced that Mildred Howard is the recipient of its 2026 Artist Award, an unrestricted $25,000 prize bestowed annually to a major painter or sculptor whose work “shows evidence of the hand.” Known for her public art across the Bay Area, alongside a diverse practice spanning assemblage, collage, sculpture, and installation, Howard has inspired countless people by salvaging objects and their histories to convey moving stories about the Black American experience. She has also been a beloved mentor and community fixture to generations of local artists. “The journey is nothing without taking someone along with you,” Howard told Hyperallergic in 2023.
In a statement about the award, Howard said that it “was a complete surprise and it comes at the perfect time.”
“The award will assist in helping me to continue my practice,” she said. “To be able to have support in these unsettling times is crucial to most artists.”
Previous recipients of the Artist Award include Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Howardena Pindell, and Suzan Frecon, among many others.
Art Gallery of Ontario Director Steps Down
Stephan Jost is departing from his role as director and CEO of the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) after a decade. Among his achievements, Jost helped secure over $500M in gifts of art and funds and led a major expansion of the museum's modern and contemporary exhibition space, according to a press statement. His tenure is also marked by major controversies and upheaval, including labor strikes and allegations of censorship after AGO reneged on a joint acquisition of a Nan Goldin artwork because of her public support for Gaza.
Anonymous Was A Woman Environmental Art Grants
Over two dozen women, transgender, and gender-nonconforming artists received nearly half a million dollars in funding for 27 projects in the fifth cycle of the Anonymous Was A Woman Environmental Art Grants. The award, announced by Anonymous Was A Woman and the New York Foundation for the Arts, provides one-time grants of up to $20,000 to artists such as Minnesota-based Ifrah Mansour, whose work centers around the hand-woven Somali nomadic dwelling known as aqal. “My work draws on the tools of the past to heal the present and to design the future,” Mansour wrote in an opinion for Hyperallergic. “It is rooted in radical imagination; in abundance, in kindness, and in collective care.”
What Else Happened?
- Cuauhtémoc Medina was named the curator of the 25th Bienal de Arte Paiz, held in Guatemala City and Antigua, Guatemala from November 2027 to February 2028.
- Margarita Lizcano Hernandez was appointed curatorial and programs associate at The Latinx Project.
- Leilah Babirye is now represented by Salon 94 in collaboration with Gordon Robichaux and Galerie Max Hetzler. The artist will have her first solo exhibition with Salon 94 next spring.
- Edouard Kopp, chief curator of the Menil Drawing Institute, was named the next director of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University.
- David Zwirner gallery announced that it will display the final works of Yayoi Kusama in an exhibition next spring. The artist passed away last week at the age of 97.
- David Nolan Gallery is opening a new 6,000-square-foot space in Tribeca on September 9, with a solo exhibition of works by Valerio Adami.
Wildcard
Alex Katz, who just celebrated his 99th birthday, joined PBS News Hour's Senior Arts Correspondent Jeffrey Brown for an interview from his home and studio in Maine. When asked about his contrarian streak, which saw him pursue graphic figuration in NYC at a time when Abstract Expressionism was the talk of the town, Katz responded, “Something deep inside tells me not to go with the other guys. I think Jackson Pollock might be the best American painter ever, and I ain't like Jackson Pollock at all, you know?”
Of his forthcoming exhibition Le silence de la peinture, which will pair his works with those of Henri Matisse at the French artist's namesake museum in Nice, Katz said, “Matisse is, in 400 years of European-American painting, the best technical painter, period. So I’ll put my paintings up there and see if they’re any good.”
