Fifteen women artists aged between 42 and 89 who have made “significant contributions” to their creative disciplines were awarded $50,000 each — no strings attached — as part of contemporary photographer Susan Unterberg’s Anonymous Was A Woman grant, the organization announced today, November 20. A complete list of grantees can be found at the end of this article.
Named after a line in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (1929), the Anonymous Was A Woman prize is open to women-identifying artists 40 years of age or older. This year’s grant doubles the $25,000 award of previous years, bringing the total amount awarded to $750,000.
While there are no restrictions on how the artists can use the money, the organization said the grant is intended to provide artists with the freedom to grow and develop their creative visions at a “critical junction” in their careers.
Unterberg launched the grant in 1996 in response to the National Endowment of the Arts ending its financial support of individual artists two years earlier, according to the organization’s website. In line with the grant’s name, the acclaimed photographer remained anonymous for over two decades until she decided to reveal her name to become a “more effective advocate for women artists” in 2018, as she said in a statement. Previously, only 10 artists received the award each year, but in 2021, that number increased to 15.
Winners of the 2024 prize work in a broad range of artistic disciplines including curation, photography, fiber arts, arts activism, and pedagogy. The cohort was selected from a pool of nominations from anonymous arts professionals.
Among the 2024 grantees is New York-based artist Erica Baum, whose works combine text and images to create poetic photographs that draw attention to language and its meanings. Also receiving the prize is Philadelphia-based multidisciplinary artist and former Right of Return Fellow Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter, whose solo exhibition Ain’t I a Woman, featuring a film of the same name, was on view at the Brooklyn Museum last year.
Other winners include Rashida Bumbray, a choreographer and curator tracing the lineage of Black women dancers; Argentinian-born printmaker, multi-media artist, and former Guggenheim Fellow Liliana Porter; Japanese-born abstract painter Takako Yamaguchi; and New York-based multi-media artist Jen Liu, whose works tackles techno and biopolitics.
Anonymous Was A Woman is also conducting a survey of women visual artists to assess the issues that impact them. The group said in a statement that the data would be publicly distributed with the intent that artists use it for their own activism, particularly as it pertains to their relationship with arts institutions.
Below is the full list of award recipients:
Erica Baum, 63
Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter, 42
Mary Lee Bendolph, 89
Natalie Bookchin, 62
Rashida Bumbray, 46
Mary Ellen Carroll, 62
Robin Hill, 69
Joyce Kozloff, 81
Jen Liu, 48
Gladys Nilsson, 84
Liz Phillips, 73
Liliana Porter, 83
Shirley Tse, 56
Takako Yamaguchi, 72
Constantina Zavitsanos, 47
