About the Prize

In May 2018, The Contemporary Austin and The FLAG Art Foundation announced the expansion and renaming of the Suzanne Deal Booth Art Prize 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.

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.

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 was on view at The Contemporary Austin February 27 – November 15, 2020. A related exhibition, Nicole Eisenman and Keith Boadwee, was 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, the 2022 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. Atoui's solo exhibition Tarek Atoui: The Whisperers premiered in Austin in spring 2022 at The Contemporary’s downtown venue, the Jones Center on Congress Avenue. The exhibition closes August 14, 2022, and will travel to The FLAG Art Foundation in New York, where it will open in fall 2022.

The Contemporary Austin is pleased to announce artist Lubaina Himid as the winner of the 2024 Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize. In addition to receiving a $200,000 cash award, Himid will present a solo exhibition premiering in Austin in spring 2024 at The Contemporary’s downtown venue, the Jones Center on Congress Avenue. The exhibition will then travel to The FLAG Art Foundation in New York, where it will open in fall 2024. In addition to the exhibition and monetary award, the prize includes an exhibition publication and public programming around the exhibitions at both venues.
 

About Suzanne Deal Booth, the FLAG Art Foundation, and Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman

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 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. She attended Rice University and graduated cum laude in art history. While at Rice and NYU, she had the opportunity to work directly under the tutelage of art patron and humanist Dominique de Menil. She assisted the artist James Turrell on Skyspace at MoMA PS1 as well as his retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and subsequently was the patron for his skyspace Twilight Epiphany at Rice University (2012). She has interned and worked at several institutions, including: les Monuments Historiques, France; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; 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 Atelier Calder. With her young family, she 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 celebrated Cabernet Sauvignon wine and olive oil.

Photo by Jeannette Montgomery Barron ©
 

The FLAG Art Foundation

The FLAG Art Foundation is a nonprofit exhibition space that encourages the appreciation of contemporary art among diverse audiences. Founded in 2008 by art patron and philanthropist Glenn Fuhrman, FLAG presents rotating exhibitions that include artworks borrowed from a variety of sources. FLAG invites a broad range of creative individuals to curate thematic group exhibitions and works in-depth with artists to provide curatorial support and a platform to realize solo shows.

FLAG fosters dialogue around contemporary art by producing artist talks, artist-led workshops, and exhibition tours for school and museum groups. Based in Manhattan’s Chelsea art district, FLAG and all of its related programs are free and open to the public.
 
FLAG also facilitates loans of contemporary artworks to museums and galleries and maintains an extensive database of artworks available to curators. To view a list of institutional art loan recipients or request access to the collection, visit the Fuhrman Family Foundation.

Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman

Glenn Fuhrman is an investor, philanthropist, and collector based in New York, NY. He is the co-Founder of Tru Arrow Partners, an investment partnership formed specifically to partner with business owners and investing families from around the world. The firm’s investing focus is on private growth technology companies primarily in the global internet, software, consumer, and fintech industries. Prior to launching Tru Arrow, Glenn was the Co-Founder of MSD Capital, L.P., the private investment firm for Michael Dell, the founder, and CEO of Dell Technologies., and from 1998 through 2019 served as its Co-Managing Partner. Glenn is also the Founder and CEO of Virtru Investment Partners, a private family office based in New York, and the Co-Founder and President of AJAX I, a special purpose acquisition company formed in October 2020. AJAX I recently merged with United Kingdom-based online car retailer Cazoo Holdings Limited. Previously, Glenn 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, The TATE Americas Foundation, and a Board member of The Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. He is a Board Member of the 92nd Street Y, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, The Central Park Conservancy, 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 diverse audiences. FLAG presents rotating exhibitions that include artworks borrowed from a variety of sources. FLAG also invites a broad range of creative individuals to curate thematic exhibitions and works in-depth with artists to provide curatorial support and a platform to realize solo exhibitions. Based in 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.