Patricia and Phillip Frost Essay Award

The Patricia and Phillip Frost Essay Award is presented annually to the author of the most distinguished peer-reviewed article in American Art, the academic journal of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, copublished by the University of Chicago Press.

The award carries a $1,000 cash prize and recognizes excellence in scholarship in the field of U.S.-American art history.

Funding for this award is made possible by the generous contribution of the Patricia and Phillip Frost Endowment. The prize was instituted in 2004 by the American Art Editorial Board.

2023: Tess Korobkin, “Monumental Absence: Augusta Savage’s Unbiolt Monuments, 1931–1943,” Fall 2023 issue (vol. 37, no. 3): 48–71. View press release | Read abstract | Read the open-access article

2022: Sami Siegelbaum, “Christopher D’Arcangelo Speculates: Transcending the Art-Labor Dialectic in Post-Fiscal-Crisis New York,” Spring 2022 issue (vol. 36, no. 1): 90-109. View press release | Read abstract

2021: Christina Michelon, “The In/Visibility of Mourning: Seeing Labor, Loss and Enslavement in an Antebellum Posthumous Portrait,” Summer 2021 issue (vol. 35, no. 2): 78-101. View press release | Read abstract

2020: Sascha Scott, “Georgia O’Keeffe’s Hawai’i? Decolonizing the History of American Modernism,” Summer 2020 (vol. 34, no. 2): 26-53. View press release | Read abstract 

2019: Diana L. Linden, "'In Honor of Dr. Martin Luther King': White Privilege and White Masks in William Christopher’s Paintings of 1963," Fall 2019 (vol. 33, no. 3): 56-73. View press release | Read abstract 

2018: Monica Steinberg, “Naming: Heteronymy and the Imaginary Artists of George Herms,” Summer 2018 (vol. 32, no. 2): 24-51. View press release | Read abstract 

2017:Peter Betjemann,"The Ends of Time: Abolition, Apocalypse, and Narrativity in Robert S. Duncanson’s Literary Paintings," Fall 2017 (vol. 31, no. 3): 80-109.View press release | Read abstract 

2016: Ross Barrett, “Bursting the Bubble: John Quidor’s Money Diggers and Land Speculation,” Spring 2016 (vol. 30, no. 1): 29-51. View press release | Read abstract 

2015: Lauren Kroiz, “‘A Jolly Lark for Amateurs’: John Steuart Curry’s Pedagogy of Painting,” Spring 2015 (vol. 29, no. 1): 28-53. View press release | Read abstract 

2014: Tanya Sheehan, “Confronting Taboo: Photography and the Art of Jacob Lawrence,” Fall 2014 (vol. 28, no. 3): 28-51. Read abstract 

2013: Max Fraser, “Hands Off the Machine: Workers’ Hands and Revolutionary Symbolism in the Visual Culture of 1930s America,” Summer 2013 (vol. 27, no. 2): 94-117. Read abstract 

2012: Ethan W. Lasser, “Selling Silver: The Business of Copley’s Paul Revere,” Fall 2012 (vol. 26, no. 3): 26-43. Read first page of article

2011: JoAnne Mancini, “Pedro Cambón’s Asian Objects: A Transpacific Approach to 18th-Century California,” Spring 2011 (vol. 25, no. 1): 28-51. Read first page of article

2010: Patricia Junker, “Childe Hassam, Marsden Hartley, and the Spirit of 1916,” Fall 2010 (vol. 24, no. 3): 26-51. Read first page of article

2009: John Ott, “Reform in Redface: The Taos Society of Artists Plays Indian,” Summer 2009 (vol. 23, no. 2): 80-107. Read first page of article

2008: ShiPu Wang, “Japan against Japan: U.S. Propaganda and Yasuo Kuniyoshi’s Identity Crisis,” Spring 2008 (vol. 22, no. 1): 28-51. Read abstract 

2007: Ellen G. Landau, “Double Consciousness in Mexico: How Philip Guston and Reuben Kadish Painted a Morelian Mural,” Spring 2007 (vol. 21, no. 1): 75-97. Read abstract 

2006: Michael Clapper, “Thomas Kinkade’s Romantic Landscape,” Summer 2006 (vol. 20, no. 2): 76-99. Read abstract

2005: Sue Taylor, “Grant Wood’s Family Album,” Summer 2005 (vol. 19, no. 2): 48-67. Read abstract

2004: Sally Stein, “The President’s Two Bodies: Stagings and Restagings of FDR and the New Deal Body Politic,” Spring 2004 (vol. 18, no. 1): 32-57. Read abstract

All peer-reviewed feature articles appearing in American Art in the past calendar year/volume are eligible. No work written by an employee of the museum or the journal’s Editorial Board will be considered.

Each year, a rotating jury of three members of the American Art Editorial Board reviews articles appearing in the relevant volume, seeking especially to honor an essay that advances our understanding of the history of the arts in the United States; demonstrates an original research discovery, methodology, or theoretical concept; provides a groundbreaking and timely contribution to the field; reflects on the relevance and implications of that contribution; and is written in a concise, active and dynamic style.

For information on how to subscribe or submit an article to American Art, which is published for the museum by the University of Chicago Press, please visit www.journals.uchicago.edu/amart.