Awards
Frank Jewett Mather Award
The Frank Jewett Mather Award, first presented in 1963 for art journalism, is named in honor of the art critic, teacher, and scholar who was affiliated with Princeton University until his death in 1953. It is awarded for significant published art criticism that has appeared in publication in a one-year period; the 2013 award year is September 1, 2011–August 31, 2012. The Mather award may be given for work that originated before the indicated period provided that such work extends into the award period.
2012 Winner
David Antin has been a singular, combative voice in art criticism since the mid 1960s. His Radical Coherency: Selected Essays on Art and Literature 1966 to 2005 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011) demonstrates his sustained critical commitment, constant formal experimentation, and a style of thought and expression that is unique to both the visual arts and poetry. The essays and “talking poems” in Radical Coherency display a no-nonsense, skeptical intelligence squaring off firsthand with the work of artists—many of them his contemporaries—who were bent on radically transforming art, from Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol to the artists of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s 1971 exhibition Art and Technology.
Past Winners
The Frank Jewett Mather Award has been presented to many well-known art critics and writers. In the 1960s, awards were presented to Max Kozloff, Barbara Rose, and Clement Greenberg, while Lawrence Alloway, Rosalind Krauss, and Lucy R. Lippard were recipients in the 1970s. The Mather awards of the 1980s were given to Robert Hughes, Leo Steinberg, and Douglas Crimp, among others, followed by Eleanor Heartney, Arthur C. Danto, and Christopher Knight in the 1990s. In 2009, Boris Groys was honored for his essays in Art Power, which address curatorship and criticism of modern and contemporary art in public venues.
Read a list of all winners of the Frank Jewett Mather Award from 1963 to the present.
Award Nominations
CAA will be accepting nominations for the 2014 Frank Jewett Mather Award in spring 2013.
