Robert Bordo
DWI, 2012,
oil on canvas
45X55 inches
Image courtesy of the artist
The Estate of Robert De Niro Sr. is pleased to announce the recipient of the Robert De Niro Sr. Prize, which recognizes a mid-career American artist devoted to the pursuit of excellence and innovation in painting. Award winner Robert Bordo, will receive this year’s $25,000 prize, for his considerable contribution to the field of painting. Bordo is the fourth recipient of the merit-based prize, which also pays tribute to the work and legacy of accomplished painter Robert De Niro Sr.
A selection committee of distinguished art profesionals was appointed to nominate candidates and select the prize recipient: Richard Flood, Director of Special Projects and Curator at Large at the New Museum; Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator at The Studio Museum in Harlem and Lindsay Pollock, Editor-in-chief of Art in America Magazine.
Richard Flood praises his work, saying “Robert Bordo’s palette is unique. The colors are poured into paintings that hover calmly between the representational and the abstract, refusing to relax into either genre. If beauty and unease are polar extremes in Bordo’s work, there is also humor mostly directed at his profession and the world in which it is practiced.” Lindsay Pollock commented, “Robert Bordo is the epitome of a dedicated painter. His works often appear abstract but are not. Unlike much painting today, there is no spectacle or decorative flourish in his works. They reveal a serious investigation of pictorial space and what paint can do. His longtime role as a teacher at Cooper Union also underscores his commitment to painting.”
On announcing this year’s recipient, Robert De Niro said, “This is the fourth year we’ve honored the legacy of my father and his outstanding work as an artist with the Robert De Niro Sr. Prize. This year, I’m so pleased to award artist, leader and teacher Robert Bordo, whose achievements in painting have continued to drive innovation in the art world.”
This month Bordo was honored at an intimate award ceremony. He was joined by previous award winners, Stanley Whitney and Joyce Pensato, who celebrated his contributions to the field of painting and his unwavering dedication to education in the arts. Upon receiving the prize Bordo spoke about briefly meeting Robert De Niro Sr. during the 1970s while studying at the New York Studio School in New York City where De Niro was teaching at the time. Today, Bordo shares De Niro’s passion for teaching, as Associate Professor of Art and a teacher in the painting program at The Cooper Union.
Bordo’s most recent one-person exhibition was Drawing Installation held at The Suburban in Oak Park, Illinois (2014); he was included in New Paintings at Alexander and Bonin Gallery in New York (2014). Bordo has been the recipient of many prestigious fellowships and grants including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 2007, the Canada Council Arts Grant, the Tesuque Foundation Arts Fellowship Award, the MacDowell Colony Fellowship and a Painting Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts.
In 2003, Bordo was a visiting critic at the Glasgow School of Art and at the Yale University MFA program. In 2007, he was a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome. Bordo also collaborated with choreographer, Mark Morris to design sets and costumes for Dido and Aeneas, which was performed in Brussels (1989), at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (1998) and as part of the ‘Mostly Mozart’ Festival at Lincoln Center (2013).
Mr. Bordo’s work is currently on view at the Steven Kasher Gallery in New York City as part of the exhibit, "12 Painters: The Studio School, 1974-2014," through January 17th.