Awards
Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Award
The Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Award for museum scholarship was established in 1980, in honor of the founding director of the Museum of Modern Art and a scholar of early-twentieth-century painting. This award is presented to the author or authors of an especially distinguished catalogue in the history of art, published in the English language under the auspices of a museum, library, or collection. Catalogues of public or private collections or significant portions thereof and exhibition catalogues are eligible.
Beginning with the 2009 award year, a second Barr award was established for the author(s) of catalogues produced by smaller museums, libraries, and collections with an annual operating budget of less than $10 million dollars.
Past Winners
The first Barr award went to Kurt Weitzmann, Margaret English Frazer, et al. in 1981 for Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century, the catalogue for an exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1979. Many more award-winning catalogues produced at that museum followed, including four of the last seven.
Publications for exhibitions held at many other institutions nationwide have been recognized by CAA for their excellence, including The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art at the Kimbell Art Museum (1988), “Degenerate Art”: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1993), and Metropolitan Lives: The Ashcan Artists and Their New York at the National Museum of American Art (1997).
Read a list of all winners of the Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Award from 1981 to the present.
Award Nominations
To nominate a book for the 2010 awards, please see the instructions on the nominations page.
