About the Prize

The Suzanne Deal Booth Art Prize, founded by The Contemporary Austin trustee Suzanne Deal Booth and administered by The Contemporary Austin, was announced in summer 2016 as an unrestricted award to be given every two years to an artist selected by a rotating, independent advisory committee made up of renowned curators and art historians of contemporary art. In fall 2016 the inaugural prize, which included a $100,000 award to an artist, along with a solo exhibition, an accompanying publication, and related public programming at The Contemporary Austin, was awarded to artist Rodney McMillian.

In May 2018, The Contemporary Austin and The FLAG Art Foundation announced the expansion and renaming of the award to the Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize. The prize includes a $200,000 award to an artist, along with all production expenses for a solo exhibition that premieres in Austin and travels to The FLAG Art Foundation in New York, an accompanying scholarly publication, and related public programming. The mission of the prize remains the same: each winning artist is selected based on his or her outstanding merit and strong record of international museum and gallery exhibitions and is an individual whom the Advisory Committee deems deserving of increased recognition, and for whom the award and exhibition would be transformative.

Glenn Fuhrman and Suzanne Deal Booth

The 2020 Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize was awarded to Nicole Eisenman, whose exhibition Sturm und Drang is on view at The Contemporary Austin through November 15, 2020. A related exhibition, Nicole Eisenman and Keith Boadwee, will be on view at The FLAG Art Foundation from December 12, 2020, through March 13, 2021.

In August 2020, The Contemporary announced artist Tarek Atoui as the winner of the 2022 Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize. Atoui was selected by an independent advisory committee comprising renowned curators and art historians from the U.S. and Great Britain. Led by Heather Pesanti, Chief Curator & Director of Curatorial Affairs at The Contemporary Austin, this year’s Advisory Committee included Darby English, Carl Darling Buck Professor, Department of Art History, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Michael Govan, CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Ingrid Schaffner, Curator, The Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX; and Catherine Wood, Senior Curator, International Art (Performance), Tate Modern, London, UK; along with institutional advisor Stephanie Roach, Director of The FLAG Art Foundation, New York.

IMAGE: Photograph by Whitney Arostegui.

About Suzanne Deal Booth

Suzanne Deal Booth has long been committed to the recognition and preservation of visual arts and cultural heritage. In 1998, Deal Booth co-founded the Friends of Heritage Preservation and has since served as director. Deal Booth has a Master of Arts in art history and art conservation from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. While at Rice and NYU, she had the opportunity to work directly under the tutelage of art patron and humanist Dominique de Menil. She worked with the artist James Turrell on Skyspace at MoMA PS1 (1986), later assisted on his retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and subsequently was the patron for his skyspace Twilight Epiphany at Rice University. She has worked at several institutions, including: les Monuments Historiques, France; the Kimbell Art Museum; the Menil Collection; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and the J. Paul Getty Trust. She currently serves on the boards of the following arts organizations: LACMA, the Menil Collection, Ballroom Marfa, The Contemporary Austin, and the Calder Foundation. Her family spent a year living in Rome and later established the Suzanne Deal Booth Rome Prize Fellowship for Historic Preservation and Conservation at the American Academy in Rome. Deal Booth’s current endeavors include establishing and cultivating Bella Oaks, a certified organic vineyard and olive orchard in Napa Valley, CA, which produces a unique and celebrated Cabernet Sauvignon wine.

Photo by Inti St. Claire. Artwork © Charline von Heyl. Courtesy the artist and Petzel, New York.

About The FLAG Art Foundation

The FLAG Art Foundation, founded in 2008 by art patron Glenn Fuhrman, is a nonprofit exhibition space that encourages the appreciation of contemporary art among a diverse audience. FLAG presents four to six exhibitions a year that include artworks by international established and emerging artists, borrowed from a variety of sources. FLAG invites a broad range of creative individuals to curate exhibitions and works in-depth with artists to provide curatorial support and a platform to realize their own solo exhibitions.

FLAG’s innovative approach to foster dialogue around contemporary art includes producing artist talks, artist-led workshops, and exhibition tours for school and museum groups. Based in the heart of Manhattan’s Chelsea art district, FLAG and its related programs are free and open to the public.

About Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman

Glenn Fuhrman is an investor, philanthropist, and collector based in New York. He is currently the Founder and CEO of Virtru Investment Partners. Prior to forming Virtru, Glenn co-founded MSD Capital, L.P., an investment firm formed in 1998, which exclusively manages the capital of Michael Dell, his family, and a select group of other investors, and he was Co-Managing Partner through 2019.Previously, he was a Managing Director and Head of the Special Investments Group at Goldman, Sachs & Co.

Glenn is a Trustee of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, The TATE Americas Foundation, and a Board member of The Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. He is also a Board Member of the 92nd St. Y, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and the Federal Enforcement Homeland Security Foundation.

In 2008, Glenn founded The FLAG Art Foundation, a non-profit exhibition space that encourages the appreciation of contemporary art among a diverse audience. FLAG presents four to six exhibitions a year that includes artworks by internationally established and emerging artists, borrowed from a variety of sources. FLAG invites a broad range of creative individuals to curate exhibitions and works in-depth with artists to provide curatorial support and a platform to realize their own solo exhibitions. Based in the heart of Manhattan’s Chelsea art district, FLAG and all its related programs are free and open to the public.

Amanda Fuhrman is a non-practicing attorney previously with Simpson, Thatcher & Bartlett LLP, specializing in Trust and Estates. She left the law to pursue public service, and became the Deputy Executive Director of Millennium Promise, a non-profit founded by economist Jeffrey Sachs and philanthropist Raymond Chambers, focused on eradicating extreme poverty. Amanda is currently a Trustee of Edible Schoolyard NYC and The Brooklyn Museum. In 2009, Amanda co-curated with Philae Knight the exhibition Re-Accession: For Sale by Owner, at FLAG, which featured a cross-section of New York-based artists who were either without, or who had lost gallery representation as a result of the 2008 economic downturn.

In 2013, Amanda and Glenn sponsored the creation of the nation’s largest free Wi-Fi network covering 95 city blocks in Harlem. In 2016, The Fuhrman Family Foundation was established to support individuals’ artistic and educational pursuits, and their physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being through grants in the visual arts, education, nutrition, health care, social justice, and poverty alleviation. In 2019, Amanda and Glenn created The FLAG Award for Teaching Excellence (FATE), which recognizes and celebrates extraordinary public school teachers who inspire learning through creativity, passion, and commitment. The inaugural $100,000 award for the 2019–20 school year focuses on Manhattan teachers and will expand to other cities in future years. They live in New York City with their three children.