Matt Connors receives the Award of Merit Medal for Painting
2024 American Academy of Arts and Letters Awards in Art
The American Academy of Arts and Letters announces the eleven recipients of its 2024 Awards in Art, totaling $125,000 to honor both established and emerging artists. Since 1942, art awards have been selected annually by Arts and Letters members to recognize and support fellow artists. The 300 members of Arts and Letters nominate candidates for awards, and a rotating committee of artists selects the winners. This year, the art awards committee members were Mel Chin, Charles Gaines, Ann Hamilton, Joan Jonas, and Amy Sillman.
Given annually since 1942, the Award of Merit Medal, which is accompanied by $25,000, is given in rotation to outstanding American painters, short story writers, sculptors, novelists, poets, and playwrights. This year, the Award of Merit Medal in Painting goes to Matt Connors. Each year, the awards committee selects five artists to receive Arts and Letters Awards of $10,000 each to honor and encourage creative work. The 2024 recipients are: An-My Lê, Dara Birnbaum, Edgar Heap of Birds, Walid Raad, and Fred Wilson.
Each year, the awards committee selects five artists to receive Arts and Letters Awards of $10,000 each to honor and encourage creative work. The 2024 recipients are: An-My Lê, Dara Birnbaum, Edgar Heap of Birds, Walid Raad, and Fred Wilson. Since 2013, the annual Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Awards, each $10,000, recognise extraordinary achievement in the visual arts. This year, the Jacob Lawrence Award will go to Pepón Osorio and the Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Award to Sharon Hayes.
In addition, Arts and Letters recognizes three young artists for their outstanding achievements: Gala Porras-Kim will receive the biannual Willard L. Metcalf Award of $10,000 to honor a young artist of great promise; Jordan Casteel will receive the John Koch Award of $10,000 to honor a young artist making figurative work; and Adam Pendleton will receive the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award of $10,000, which has been awarded annually to a young painter of distinction since 1960. The art awards will be presented alongside the architecture, literature, and music awards at Arts and Letters’s annual Ceremonial in May. A list of the 2024 art award recipients follows.