Awards
2007 Frank Jewett Mather Award
Jerry Saltz
Jerry Saltz with Bill Clinton (photograph by Ravi Sawhney)
For more than two decades, Jerry Saltz, senior art critic at the Village Voice, has passionately chronicled the New York art scene, providing weekly reviews of exhibitions and art-world events in entertaining, insightful articles. Beyond writing for the Voice, he has contributed to almost every major art publication and has served as a curator, lecturer, and exhibition juror for a wide variety of venues. In all his activities Saltz has been a strong and articulate advocate for contemporary art and artists. With wit and intelligence he has conveyed art’s excitement and significance to a wider public. Saltz has twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism, most recently in 2006. Seeing Out Loud, a collection of his columns for the Voice, appeared in 2003. But the essence of his achievement lies in the generous attention he gives week after week to art of all sorts, and his ability to consider art and its role in society in terms that are accessible to specialists and general audiences alike.
Jury: Charles Reeve, Ontario College of Art and Design, chair; Charles Hagen, University of Connecticut; and Catherine Lord, University of California, Irvine.
