Christina Rees Wins $50,000 Rabkin Prize for Arts Writers

Christina Rees

Today, The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation announced that Christina Rees, Glasstire’s Editor-in-Chief, has been awarded the new Rabkin Prize for Arts Journalism. For its inaugural year, sixteen arts writers were nominated for the prize, and eight were chosen by a panel of three jurors, including New York-based artist and critic Walter Robinson, Los Angeles-based writer and editor Lisa Gabrielle Mark, and Paul Ha, director of the List Visual Arts Center at MIT.

The eight selected writers will each receive a $50,000 grant from the Rabkin Foundation. The awardees include:

Phong Bui, Co-Founder and Artistic Director of The Brooklyn Rail, Brooklyn, New York
Charles Desmarais, Art Critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco, California
Bob Keyes, Writer for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine
Jason Farago, Art Critic for The New York Times, New York, New York
Jeff Huebner, arts journalist and freelance writer based in Chicago, Illinois
Carolina Miranda, Los Angeles Times staff writer, Los Angeles, California
Christina Rees, Glasstire’s Editor-in-Chief, Dallas, Texas
Chris Vitiello, Writer, curator and organizer based in Durham, North Carolina

The Rabkin Foundation says of the award:

Our program will recognize outstanding career contributions by art critics who inform the public through their writing on contemporary art and artists. This program is by nomination and it will involve the input and deliberation of panels of nationally-recognized curators, writers, artists and other thoughtful readers of contemporary art criticism. 

Established in 1999, the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation was created to share the work and legacy of artist and collector Leo Rabkin. Based in Portland, Maine, the foundation includes an exhibition space dedicated to showing Rabkin’s works.