AAMC Announces 2011 Awards for Excellence Winners

ASSOCIATION OF ART MUSEUM CURATORS ANNOUNCES

THE RECIPIENTS OF THE ANNUAL AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE IN 2011

For Release May 14, 2012

The Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) announced today its annual Awards for Excellence in the categories of museum catalogues, articles, and exhibitions. Members of the AAMC are eligible for nomination, and awards are determined by the organization’s membership. "Each year the awards become more and more competitive as the nomination pool grows,” says Sally Block, Executive Director of the Association of Art Museum Curators, "As the only awards where curators honor their fellow curators, we are proud of the substantial achievements of the profession and are especially pleased to honor this year’s winners.” 

In the field of publications, the AAMC honored AAMC member Linda Komaroff for Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and member Andrew Perchuk for Pacific Standard Time: Los Angeles Art, 1945-1980 from the Getty Research Institute and the J. Paul Getty Museum as the Outstanding Exhibition Catalogues in 2011.  The catalogues tied for the top prize from a slate of over sixty nominated books. Ilona Katzew’s Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World, also from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, was awarded runner-up.  "The jury felt there were numerous strong publications on a range of significant subjects to consider for the AAMC's Exhibition Catalogue Prize,” says Tracy Adler, AAMC prize juror, "Ultimately, we agreed that the introduction of new scholarship, quality of writing, and design of the catalogue were essential to our final selections. We recognize the immense contribution of Pacific Standard Time to an emerging field of postwar art in California and the critical and multi-layered scholarship of Gifts of the Sultan, which resulted in our top prizes. Our runner-up, Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World presented new research and a fresh perspective on its subject matter.”

Fragonard’s Progress of Love at The Frick Collection, written by Colin B. Bailey, was awarded the Outstanding Catalogue based on a Permanent Collection, and Margaret Hofer’s Stories in Sterling Four Centuries of Silver in New York from the New-York Historical Society received honorable mention. "Fragonard is a catalogue of commendable achievement.  The breadth and focus of the subject matter, which is informed by impeccable research and compelling illustrations, is also an intriguing story that thoroughly engages the reader,” says Brooke Kellaway, AAMC prize jury chair. "Stories in Sterling contributes new perspectives with in-depth documentation complemented by exceptionally high-quality images.”  

Other awards included Outstanding Catalogue Essay winner "Reconsidering 'The Soil'": The Stieglitz Circle, The Regionalists and Cultural Eugenics in the Twenties" by Randall R. Griffey from the catalogue Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties and Exhibition awards for "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty,” "The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde,” "It Happened at Pomona: Art at the Edge of Los Angeles 1969-1973,”and "Antico: The Golden Age of Renaissance Bronzes.”  The Denver Art Museum was honored for its gallery reinstallation "Artist’s Eye, Artist’s Hand: American Indian Art.”

The awards were formally announced at the AAMC 11^th Annual Meeting on May 14, 2012 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The following is a complete list of winners (AAMC members’ names are listed in italics):

Outstanding Catalogue Based on an Exhibition

First Place (tie)

Linda Komaroff, Sheila Blair, Jonathan Bloom, Anthony Cutler, Aimee E. Froom, Abdallah Kahil, Edward Kasinec, Robert Davis, Ralph Kauz, Francesca Leoni, Michael Morony, Ilber Ortayli, Keelan Overton, Avinoam Shalem, Marianna Shreve Simpson, Tim Stanley, Susan Stronge, Wheeler Thackston, Lale Uluc, Olga V. Vasilyeva 

Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts, Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2011.

Rebecca Peabody, Andrew Perchuk, Glenn Phillips, Rani Singh, Lucy Bradnock 

Pacific Standard Time: Los Angeles Art 1945-1980, Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2011.

Runner-up

Ilona Katzew, William B. Taylor, Luisa Elena Alcalá, Thomas B.F. Cummins, Carolyn Dean, Mónica Domínguez Torres, Eduardo de Jesús Douglas, Cecelia F. Klein, Diana Magaloni Kerpel, Ramón Mujica Pinilla, Kevin Terraciano, Luis Eduardo Wuffarden 

Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World, Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2011. Distributed by Yale University Press.

Outstanding Catalogue Based on a Permanent Collection

First Place

Colin B. Bailey

Fragonard’s Progress of Love at The Frick Collection, New York: The Frick Collection in association with D Giles Limited, 2011.

Honorable Mention

Margaret Hofer; Debra Schmidt Bach; Kenneth Ames; David L. Barquist 

Stories in Sterling: Four Centuries of Silver in New York, New York: New-York Historical Society in association with D Giles Limited, 2011.

Outstanding Catalogue Essay

Randall R. Griffey, Curator of American Art, Mead Art Museum, Amherst College

"Reconsidering 'The Soil'": The Stieglitz Circle, The Regionalists and Cultural Eugenics in the Twenties," in Teresa A. Carbone, et al., Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties, exh. cat. (Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum, 2011), 245-77.

Outstanding Monographic or Retrospective Exhibition

"Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty”

Curated by Andrew Bolton

The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art 

Outstanding Thematic Exhibition

"The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde”

Co-curated by Janet Bishop of SFMOMA, Cécile Debray for the Reunion des Musées Nationaux-Grand Palais, Rebecca Rabinow of the Metropolitan Museum of Art of Art, and Gary Tinterow, formerly of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with key support, research, and/or curatorial contributions from Valérie Loth, Mary Clare McKinley, Kate Mendillo, Robert McD. Parker, and Carrie Pilto.

Outstanding Exhibition in a University Museum

"It Happened at Pomona: Art at the Edge of Los Angeles 1969-1973”

Curated by Rebecca McGrew, Pomona College Museum of Art and Glenn Phillips, Getty Research Institute

Pomona College Museum of Art

Outstanding Permanent Collection New Installation (or Re-installation)

"Artist’s Eye, Artist’s Hand: American Indian Art”

Curated by Nancy Blomberg, Chief Curator and Curator of Native Arts, Denver Art Museum 

Denver Art Museum 

Outstanding Small Exhibition (based on square footage: no more than 2,000 square feet)

"Antico: The Golden Age of Renaissance Bronzes”

Curated by Eleonora Luciano, associate curator of sculpture, National Gallery of Art, in collaboration with Denise Allen, curator of Italian sculpture, The Frick Collection, New York, and Claudia Kryza-Gersch, Curator of the Kunstkammer, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

National Gallery of Art, Washington

Mission of the AAMC

The mission of the Association of Art Museum Curators is to support and promote the work of museum curators by creating opportunities for networking, collaboration, professional development, and advancement.

With a membership of over 1200, the goals of the AAMC are to:

·      Serve as an advocacy group for the curatorial profession

·      Articulate professional standards and best practices

·      Promote best practices and professional relationships through Annual Meetings and educational programs on selected themes held at venues throughout North America

·      Promote research, scholarship, and networking opportunities through travel grants

·      Use the website to exchange scholarly and procedural information as well as traveling exhibition and employment opportunities

·      Recognize distinguished achievement in the field through annual awards

·      Provide an open forum for discussion about museum issues in North America

·      Accomplish these goals in cooperation with museum directors, trustees, and other staff as well as other national cultural and arts advocacy organizations

END

Contact: Sally Block, Executive Director, 212-879-5701 sally.block@artcurators.org