Rising Voices 4: The Bennett Prize for Women Figurative Realists
Exhibition Dates: May 15 – August 24, 2025 (with additional travel)
Call for Entries: Apr. 15 through Oct. 4, 2024
About The Prize: The Bennett Prize is a stipend/grant-in-aid program established by American art collectors Steven Alan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt to support the fine art practice of a woman painter working in figurative realism. The Bennett Prize, administered by The Pittsburgh Foundation, is awarded biennially and provides $25,000 annually over two consecutive years to the winning artist ($50,000 total). Ten (10) finalists will be selected to participate in a traveling exhibition organized by the Muskegon Museum of Art (MMA) and the winner will be showcased in a solo exhibition at the close of her grant. A runner up award of $10,000 will be given to one additional finalist. The opening exhibition will be held from May 15 to August 24, 2025 at the Muskegon Museum of Art before traveling to additional venues.
Eligibility: The Bennett Prize is open only to women eighteen (18) years or older residing at least part time in the United States (50 States and Washington, D.C.) whose primary practice is the creation of original paintings in the genre of figurative realism. Part-time residence must include an active studio practice in the U.S. (On-site studio visits are a required component of The Prize.) U.S. Citizenship is not required. Artists must be currently pursuing, or hope to pursue, a career as a full-time painter. To be eligible as a Finalist artists must not be a full or part time student between the close of the call for entry on October 4, 2024 through the announcement of the Prize winner on May 15, 2025. The winner of The Prize may not be a full- or part-time student at any time from May 15, 2025 through the opening of her solo Prize exhibition in May 2027. Employment during the period of the grant DOES NOT affect eligibility. Artists who have received a prior award or grant of $25,000 or more, or sold any single work of art for $25,000 or more, are NOT eligible. To be considered for The Bennett Prize artists are required to participate in the exhibition of finalists, both by the submission and display of their work and attendance at the opening event. Artists must have works available for exhibition from February 7, 2025 through Sept. 2027. For additional information see the F.A.Q. at www.thebennettprize.org.
PLEASE READ ALL OF THE RULES AND TERMS BEFORE APPLYING. No refunds will be given for ineligible or disqualified entries, so read all terms. SUBMIT IMAGES AND ONE DETAIL FOR NO FEWER THAN THREE (3) AND NO MORE THAN FIVE (5) PAINTINGS.
Entry: Entry is digital, through the www.callforentry.org (CaFÉ) website. Search keyword “Bennett.” Free CaFÉ registration is required. Artists should submit a minimum of three (3) and no more than five (5) artworks and one detail, for a total of four (4) to six (6) images.
Deadline: Deadline for entry is 11:59PM MST Oct. 4, 2024
Number of Entries: Each artist may submit up to five (5) paintings for consideration by jurors. All entrants must also include one (1) detail image that demonstrates their craft and technique. Entries that do not include a minimum of three (3) pieces and one (1) detail will not be considered.
Digital Entry: Digital image files must conform to the requirements as listed on the CaFÉ site. Be sure to supply the title, media, and dimensions of your entries. Incomplete entries will not be juried. Professional photography of artworks is encouraged but not required.
Eligible Entries: Paintings must depict representational images of one or more figures of any gender. Figures may be clothed or nude and do not need to be photorealistic. All entries must be traditional paintings, which is defined as paint upon a two-dimensional surface. For this purpose, watercolor, gouache, and pastels are considered “paint.” Mixed media pieces will be considered as long as paint is the primary material. Paintings rendered over the top of photographic images are NOT eligible. Only original works completed in the past five (5) years are eligible for consideration.
Questions? Please call the MMA at 231-720-2582.
Notification: Artists will be notified of the jury results by email no later than Nov. 4, 2024.
Acceptance: Accepted artists must provide images and details for a minimum of four (4) paintings available for exhibition no later than Dec. 20, 2024 to maintain their eligibility. If the artworks submitted for jurying are not available then any alternate works submitted for exhibition must be representative of the juried pieces. Available paintings that deviate substantially in quality or theme from the juried works will not be considered and the accepted finalist will be disqualified and replaced with an alternate. To be considered for exhibition paintings must meet the criteria established in these rules. Depending on scale, two (2) or more paintings will be selected for exhibition from each of the ten (10) finalists. Finalists will be notified by Jan 3, 2025 of which paintings to send for exhibition. Artworks for exhibition must arrive at the MMA no later than Feb. 7, 2025 and be available for travel through Sept. 2027.
Exhibition Criteria: Paintings must be fully dry and suitable for travel to multiple venues. Ideally, paintings will be framed, though this is not required. All works must hang using wires, cleats, or D-rings. Works on paper must be framed and glazed. In the event you are selected as a finalist, MMA staff will coordinate with you on preparation for display and travel as necessary.
Delivery: The Muskegon Museum of Art will cover packing and shipping costs to and from the artist (U.S. domestic shipping only). Artworks must be shipped to arrive at the MMA no later Feb. 7, 2025. MMA staff will coordinate with the ten (10) finalists on shipping arrangements. Art will be sent to:
Attn: Bennett Prize
Muskegon Museum of Art, 296 W Webster Ave, Muskegon, MI 49440
Email: amartin@muskegonartmuseum.org Phone: 231-720-2582
Entry Fee: The fee for entry is $40. Refunds cannot be provided after entry. No refunds will be given for ineligible or disqualified entries so read all terms carefully before applying.
Art Sales: While it is not required, exhibiting artists are strongly encouraged to make all exhibited artworks available for sale. Artists may not place restrictions or special conditions on sales, including on the identity or characteristics of the buyer. The MMA commission is 40% and must be included in the purchase price. Work offered for sale will be sold as exhibited and delivered to the purchaser by the MMA at the close of the traveling exhibition. It is the responsibility of the artist to resolve any issues as relates to gallery or agent representation if they choose to have the work(s) for sale.
Catalogue: The Pittsburgh Foundation and MMA will publish a full color catalogue in conjunction with the exhibition featuring the artwork of the ten (10) finalists. Artists are required to submit biographical materials and an artist statement for inclusion. The MMA will handle all catalogue photography of traveling works and share those image files with the artist.
Insurance: All artworks submitted for exhibition will be insured by MMA while in its possession and during the traveling exhibition. Artists must submit insurance values upon delivery of the art to the MMA. Artists are responsible for insurance during transport to and from MMA at the opening and close of the exhibition; the MMA WILL NOT insure works while in the possession of the artist or commercial carriers on their behalf.
Liability: Participating artists will be required to sign a loan agreement with the MMA. Submitting a work of art to this exhibition requires agreement by the artist to all stated conditions.
Publicity: All artists grant the MMA and The Pittsburgh Foundation the right to photograph and use any work submitted for exhibition for the purpose of the catalogue, publicity, advertising, or education. In addition, permission from the artists to reproduce their work in the catalogue is a condition of eligibility.
Travel: The MMA will cover travel and lodging expenses of the ten finalists to attend the opening event on May 15-16, 2025. The opening event includes a public reception, award ceremony, and private dinner. Friday, May 16 includes breakfast/meet and greet with finalists and their guests, MMA docent-led tours, lunch, and an afternoon professional development session with museum and gallery professionals and collectors.
The Bennett Prize: The winning artist, after being confirmed for eligibility, will enter into a separate agreement governing the two (2) years over which the proceeds of the Prize will be paid. In addition to the $50,000 over two (2) years, the winning artist will also be featured in a solo exhibition at the MMA that will open in May 2027. The solo show will also travel with the exhibition of finalists. A runner up award of $10,000 will be given to one additional finalist.
Jurors: A panel of four jurors will adjudicate The Bennett Prize from the submitted entries.
ANGELA FRALEIGH
Angela Fraleigh earned her MFA from the Yale University School of Art and her BFA from Boston University. Her oil and mixed media work is a combination of realism, abstraction, and classical figuration that explores a variety of themes including femininity, gender, sexuality, and relationships. Her solo exhibitions include those at Hirschl and Adler Modern and PPOW Gallery in New York, Inman Gallery in Houston, and Peters Projects in Santa Fe. She has exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City. She is also the recipient of several awards and residencies including the Yale University Alice Kimball English grant, The Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program in Brooklyn, New York, The CORE program in Houston, Texas, and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska, among others. Fraleigh has created site-specific solo projects for the Edward Hopper House Museum, the Vanderbilt Mansion Museum, the Everson Museum of Art, the Delaware Art Museum, and the Weatherspoon Art Museum. She lives and works in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where she is a full professor at Moravian University. www.angelafraleigh.com
GLORIA GROOM
Gloria Groom is the Winton Green Curator of 19th-Century European Painting and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago where she also serves as Chair of European Painting and Sculpture. Groom received her PhD in art history from The University of Texas at Austin and holds a certificate in museology from the Louvre in Paris. A noted scholar of the Impressionists, Groom has been involved with numerous major exhibitions and the accompanying catalogues, including Cezanne (2022), Monet and Chicago (2020), Manet and Modern Beauty (2019), Gaugin: Artist as Alchemist (2017), Van Gogh’s Bedrooms (2016), and Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity (2012), among others. She has written for and edited volumes on Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Caillebotte, Gauguin, Manet, and Cezanne. For her efforts on behalf of, and her contributions to, French culture she has been recognized by the Republic of France, which has named her an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters and a Chevalier in the Legion of Honour, the highest French order of merit for which she has been named Executive Director of Initiatives in France, Chevalier d'Honneur, at the Art Institute of Chicago. Her current project is a retrospective exhibition on Gustave Caillebotte, to open at the Musée d'Orsay Paris in October 2024, the Getty Museum Los Angeles in February 2025, and at the Art Institute of Chicago in June 2025.
https://www.artic.edu/authors/6/gloria-groom
ELAINE MELOTTI SCHMIDT
Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt is co-founder of The Bennett Prize for Women Figurative Realists and co-curator of The Bennett Collection, an art collection dedicated to paintings of women by women. Schmidt received her doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from Temple University and has worked or consulted in schools on three continents. With a special passion for reaching children living in poverty or born with learning or physical differences, Schmidt’s areas of specialization include early childhood education, special needs, second language learners, and at-risk student instruction. Schmidt lives with her husband, Steven Alan Bennett, in Texas, where they are art collectors who specialize in realist paintings of women by women artists. This undertaking has afforded Schmidt the opportunity to meet many working women artists as well as to create a collection of paintings showing women from all walks of life. Schmidt has curated a number of art exhibitions including Visions of Venus/Venus’s Visions, which appeared at the Zhou B Art Center in Chicago in 2018 and, with Bennett, Painting the Figure Now at the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art in Wausau, Wisconsin in 2021. She and Bennett are major donors to the Muskegon Museum of Art in Muskegon, Michigan, which will open its new wing, the Bennett Schmidt Pavilion, in 2025. https://thebennettprize.org/bennetts
MARGARET BOWLAND
Margaret Bowland is a faculty member at the New York Academy of Art where she has taught painting for almost 30 years. She is widely exhibited and published, and her work is instantly recognizable by all who follow the work of contemporary figurative realist painters. Known especially for her paintings of women, the bodies of her figures are often covered with stage makeup, cake icing, or other semi-opaque pigments, which Bowland uses to describe the layered opacity of the self. Her paintings are explorations of the issues of identity, self-understanding, and maturation that investigate who her sitters are and what layers of themselves they have uncovered or, conversely, are unable to expose. Says Bowland, “Painting on skin is by intent a metaphor to expose basic questions of self-identity, which all people undergo internally as a part of the maturation process. It is also reflective of the last 500 years of global cultures, which sought to cover their women in makeup, powders, paints, even mud.” Bowland has been featured in a number of solo and group shows and in a plethora of art publications, including the New York Daily News, HiFructose, the Huffington Post, Fine Art Connoisseur, Hyperallergic, D Magazine and a variety of others. Her work is in numerous museum and private collections, including The Norton Museum of Art, The Frost Museum, The Greenville Museum of Art, and the North Carolina Museum of Art, among others. https://nyaa.edu/graduate-program/faculty/margaret-bowland/
