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MacDowell NYC
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Freedom to create.
Marian MacDowell Arts Advocacy Award
The Marian MacDowell Arts Advocacy Award was created to honor those who profoundly and uniquely support artists, aligning with our founder Marian MacDowell’s legacy and her championship of artists as they create bold new works that spark our imagination, illuminate our world, and celebrate our humanity.
The 2023 Marian MacDowell Arts Advocacy Award was given to Fairfax Dorn, co-founder and artistic director of Ballroom Marfa. Special guest and conceptual artist Adam Pendleton presented Dorn with the award and spoke about her life-long commitment to supporting and centering artists’ needs. (Beowulf Sheehan photo)
In 2020, MacDowell presented the inaugural Marian MacDowell Arts Advocacy Award to Ava DuVernay and ARRAY, a multi-platform media company and arts collective based in Los Angeles that amplifies independent films by Black artists, people of color, and women filmmakers globally. In 2021, the Award honored Mahogany L. Browne and Urban Word NYC, one of the oldest and most comprehensive youth literary arts organizations in the country. In 2022, MacDowell Fellow and founder of Anonymous Was A Woman, Susan Unterberg, was the Award’s recipient for her advocacy and philanthropy around gender equity in the arts. In 2023, MacDowell celebrated Fairfax Dorn, co-founder and artistic director of Ballroom Marfa, the Award for her life-long commitment to supporting and centering artists’ needs.
Marian MacDowell Arts Advocacy Awardees
Below is a list of Awardees. Please click through to see full details for the National Benefit at which the award is/was presented. (*denotes MacDowell Fellows).
The Edward MacDowell Medal is an annual award recognizing an artists who has made an outstanding contribution to American culture and the arts. Awarded during a ceremony on Medal Day, the artistic discipline in which the award is given rotates in order to celebrate all of the creative fields practiced at MacDowell. The Medal Day ceremony features not only the honoree but also a well-known presentation speaker who is familiar with the Medalist's work.
