Dallas, TX—May 20, 2024—The Dallas Museum of Art is pleased to announce its 2024 Awards to Artists recipients. Selected from a record-setting number of applicants, 17 artists, ages 18 to 67, received awards from the Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund Award, the Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund Award and the Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant. All 2024 recipients are from Texas, including 16 based in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. Through the three funds, over $40,000 was awarded to both up-and-coming and established artists. This year’s historic Awards to Artists granted the largest number of awards in the program’s 54-year history. It is also one of the largest sums granted. The combined awards programs have given more than 420 artists nearly $1 million since 1980. Kyle Hobratschk, multidisciplinary artist and founder and director of the 100 West – Corsicana Artist and Writer Residency, served as this year’s guest juror.
“We were overwhelmed to receive such a large group of deserving applicants for this year’s Awards to Artists grants,” said Dr. Anna Katherine Brodbeck, Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art. “With practices that range from figurative painting to research-based conceptual practice, this group of artists foretells great things for the future of the visual arts in our region.”
The DeGolyer and Kimbrough funds will primarily support research and materials for the development of new, ambitious bodies of work. Projects and activities include the development of an open studio program catering to marginalized youth, particularly shelters for young women who have endured domestic abuse; technology upgrades for compositions taking inspiration from a live neurofeedback visualizer; studio space; and supplies to support portfolio development in pursuit of higher education. Through collaborative projects and workshops, the Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant will support travel across Europe; to Japan’s three sacred mountains—Mount Fuji, Mount Haku, and Mount Tate—and the artisans of Echizen Village to explore Japanese papermaking practices; to Europe to create frottage impressions of the tombstones of type designers for a forthcoming anthological book; and to Martinique to study and photograph plantation sites that have been converted into rum distilleries and cultural heritage sites.
“It is an honor for our institution to facilitate the career development of such phenomenal artists,” said Dr. Agustin Arteaga, The Eugene McDermott Director of the Dallas Musuem of Art. “We are thrilled that the vast majority of recipients are based in the DFW area and are celebrating these awards as an investment in our community.”
2024 Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund Award recipients:
Katie Covarrubias
Abigail Albano Payton
Reyna Ramirez
Sheridan Hines
Quinn Espinoza
Elijah Ruhala
Joy Reyes
2024 Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund Award recipients:
Alexis Pye
Christina Hahn
Marley McMilian
Alicia Parham
Kelsha Reese Spencer
Nicholas Gully
2024 Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant recipients:
Hakeem Adewumi
Armando Sebastian
Donna Zarbin-Byrne
Gavin Morrison
“The breadth and depth of this applicant pool prove and promise a creative class critically significant for Texas expression, well beyond the grants’ awardees,” said guest juror Kyle Hobratschk. “I am very honored to have had the opportunity to come to know these artists through their applications, and I look forward to seeing what their practices bring next.”
The DMA will host the awardees for a public presentation on their work and future projects on Thursday, June 6 at 7 p.m. in Horchow Auditorium.
About the DMA’s Annual Awards to Artists
In 1980 the DeGolyer and Kimbrough families established two funds—the Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund and the Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund—for the purpose of recognizing exceptional talent and promise in young artists residing in the southwestern part of the United States. Ten years later, the Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant was established to honor the memory of these two Dallas artists, who strongly believed in the enriching experiential and aesthetic influence of travel on an artist’s work. Together, these three funds created what is now known as Awards to Artists.
Since its establishment, Awards to Artists has given out nearly $1 million across 424 awarded grants: 140 DeGolyer grants, 214 Kimbrough grants, and 70 Dozier travel grants. Many of these recipients have gone on to have successful careers within North Texas and across the country, and several of them are now represented in the Dallas Museum of Art’s collection. Awards to Artists reaffirms the Museum’s longstanding commitment to recognizing and supporting local artists and providing resources for these artists to expand their artistic practice.