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Also receiving fellowships are CalArts School of Art alumni J Stoner Blackwell, Cammie Staros, and Valerie Tevere, and recent visiting artist and Alpert Herb Alpert Award in the Arts recipient Lloyd Suh.
175 artists, writers, scholars, and scientists named to Fellowship, 95th class since 1925
On April 8, 2020, the Board of Trustees of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation approved the awarding of Guggenheim Fellowships to a diverse group of 175 writers, scholars, artists, and scientists.
Pia Borg, associate director of the Experimental Animation Program at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), was award a fellowship in Film and Video. CalArts School of Art alumni J Stoner Blackwell, Cammie Staros, and Valerie Tevere, as well as recent visiting artist and Herb Alpert Award in the Arts recipient Lloyd Suh, also received fellowships.
Appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise, the successful candidates were chosen through a rigorous peer-review process from almost 3,000 applicants in the Foundation’s 95th competition.
“It’s exceptionally encouraging to be able to share such positive news at this terribly challenging time” said Edward Hirsch, President of the Foundation. “A Guggenheim Fellowship has always offered practical assistance, helping Fellows do their work, but for many of the new Fellows, it may be a lifeline at a time of hardship, a survival tool as well as a creative one. As we grapple with the difficulties of the moment, it is also important to look to the future. The artists, writers, scholars, and scientific researchers supported by the Fellowship will help us understand and learn from what we are enduring individually and collectively, and it is an honor for the Foundation to help them do their essential work.”
The great variety of backgrounds, fields of study, and accomplishments of Guggenheim Fellows is a unique characteristic of the Fellowship program. In all, 53 scholarly disciplines and artistic fields, 75 different academic institutions, 31 states and the District of Columbia, and two Canadian provinces are represented in this year’s class of Fellows, who range in age from 29 to 82. Close to 60 Fellows have no full-time college or university affiliation.
Since its establishment in 1925, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has granted more than $375 million in Fellowships to more than 18,000 individuals, among whom are scores of Nobel laureates, Fields Medalists, poets laureate, members of the national academies, winners of the Pulitzer Prize, Turing Award, Bancroft Prize, National Book Award, and other internationally recognized honors. Created by Senator Simon and Olga Guggenheim in memory of their son, the Foundation has sought since its inception to “further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them to engage in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts, under the freest possible conditions.”
After 95 years, the Guggenheim Fellowship program remains a significant source of support for artists, scholars in the humanities and social sciences, and scientific researchers. In addition to the generous support of Senator Simon and Mrs. Olga Guggenheim, new and continuing donations from friends, Trustees, former Fellows, and other foundations have ensured that the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation will maintain its historic mission. An exceptionally generous bequest in 2019 from the estate of the great American novelist Philip Roth, a Fellow in 1959, is providing partial support for the wide variety of writers supported by the Foundation.
For more information on the 2020 Fellows, please visit the Foundation’s website at http://www.gf.org.