Art Movements, published every Thursday afternoon, collects essential news, appointments, awards, and other developments from the art world.
A Major Milestone for Mildred Howard
The Artists’ Legacy Foundation has named Mildred Howard the recipient of its 2026 Artist Award, an unrestricted $25,000 prize given each year to a major painter or sculptor whose work “shows evidence of the hand.” Widely recognized for her public art throughout the Bay Area, Howard also works across assemblage, collage, sculpture, and installation, often transforming salvaged objects and their histories into poignant narratives about the Black American experience. Over the years, she has also served as a cherished mentor and an enduring presence in the local arts community. “The journey is nothing without taking someone along with you,” Howard told Hyperallergic in 2023.
Commenting on the honor, Howard said the award “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 Artist Award winners include Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Howardena Pindell, and Suzan Frecon, among many others.
Mildred Howard, “Do We Have the Right to Remain Silent” (2021-26) (image courtesy Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco)
Art Gallery of Ontario Director Steps Down
Stephan Jost is leaving his post as director and CEO of the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) after 10 years in the role. According to a press statement, Jost’s accomplishments include helping secure more than $500 million in gifts of art and funds, as well as overseeing a significant expansion of the museum’s modern and contemporary exhibition space. His time at the AGO was also defined by controversy and disruption, including labor strikes and accusations of censorship after the museum withdrew from a joint acquisition of a Nan Goldin work because of her public support for Gaza.
Anonymous Was A Woman Environmental Art Grants
More than two dozen women, transgender, and gender-nonconforming artists have received nearly half a million dollars for 27 projects in the fifth round of the Anonymous Was A Woman Environmental Art Grants. Recipients include Mary Mattingly, Reniqua Allen-Lamphere, Alex J. Bledsoe, Tamara Cedré, Naomi Wanjiku Gakunga, and Fawn Douglas; the full list is available here. Announced by Anonymous Was A Woman and the New York Foundation for the Arts, the program offers one-time grants of up to $20,000 for projects such as Minnesota-based Ifrah Mansour’s work focused on 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 selected as curator of the 25th Bienal de Arte Paiz, which will take place in Guatemala City and Antigua, Guatemala from November 2027 to February 2028. Margarita Lizcano Hernandez has been 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, and she will present her first solo show with Salon 94 next spring.
Edouard Kopp, chief curator of the Menil Drawing Institute, has been named the next director of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University. David Zwirner gallery said it will present the final works of Yayoi Kusama in an exhibition next spring; the artist died last week at 97. David Nolan Gallery is set to open 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 recently turned 99, spoke with PBS News Hour Senior Arts Correspondent Jeffrey Brown from his home and studio in Maine. Asked about his contrarian streak, which led him to pursue graphic figuration in New York City when Abstract Expressionism dominated the conversation, Katz said, “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?”
Looking ahead to his exhibition Le silence de la peinture, which will pair his work with that of Henri Matisse at the French artist’s namesake museum in Nice, Katz added, “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.”
