R. H. Quaytman awarded the 2016 Robert De Niro, Sr. Prize

R. H. QUAYTMAN
Morning, Chapter 30, 2016
2 parts:
1. Oil, egg tempera, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood
37 1/16 x 37 1/16 x 1 1/4 inches (94.1 x 94.1 x 3.18 cm)
[RQ1887.16]
2. Gouache, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood
32 3/8 x 20 x 3/4 inches (82.25 x 50.8 x 1.9 cm)
[RQ1908.16]
Overall dimensions:
38 1/16 x 37 1/16 x 3 inches (96.68 x 94.1 x 7.62 cm)

(NEW YORK, NY) DECEMBER 12, 2016 — Robert De Niro Jr. announced the winner of the 2016 Robert De Niro Sr. Prize, which focuses on a mid-career American artist devoted to the pursuit of excellence and innovation in painting. Award winner R.H. Quaytman will receive this year’s $25,000 prize administered by Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) for her considerable contribution to the field of painting. R.H. Quaytman is the sixth recipient of the merit-based prize, which pays tribute to the work and legacy of accomplished painter Robert De Niro Sr.

Robert De Niro Sr. was part of the celebrated New York School of post-war American artists. In his honor, this award was created by his son and TFI Co-Founder Robert De Niro to support the next generation of American painters.  The Robert De Niro Sr. Prize is among the first of its kind to celebrate and shine a light on influential mid-career artists. Stanley Whitney received the inaugural award in 2011, Joyce Pensato in 2012, Catherine Murphy in 2013, Robert Bordo in 2014, and Laura Owens in 2015.

A selection committee of distinguished individuals in the art world was appointed to nominate candidates and select the prize recipient. It included: Kelly Baum, Curator of Postwar and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Scott Rothkopf, Deputy Director for Programs and Nancy & Steve Crown Family Chief Curator at the Whitney; Katherine Brinson, Curator, Contemporary Art.
 
“Rebecca Quaytman makes some of the smartest, most intriguing paintings in the United States,” stated Baum. “The work she has produced since 2001, which is conceived as a series of chapters, each one based on extensive research, brilliantly triangulates form, content, and structure. It also addresses self-consciously the conditions of its own reception in time and space, just as it considers explicitly the nature of painting and perception today. We wanted to recognize the importance of Quaytman’s work to the history of American painting as well as the crucial role Quaytman played as director of Orchard between 2005 and 2008.”

Brinson continued “R. H. Quaytman's incisive practice explores the critical agency of painting today. Drawing on diverse visual sources and conceptual references, her works cohere into a nuanced meditation on the layered, relational, and highly perspectival interpretive possibilities offered by the painted image.”

Rothkopf added, "The conceptual rigor of Quaytman's work is matched by a surprising emotional sensitivity and timbre.  Her paintings eloquently evoke a poetic sensibility and range of moods that can feel almost expressionistic despite their often mechanical and mediated means."

R.H. Quaytman (b. 1961, Boston, Massachusetts) lives and works in New York, NY. She graduated from Bard college in 1983.

Quaytman is best known for her paintings on wood panels that incorporate photography, digital technologies, and printmaking techniques that are the result of extensive research precipitated by the historical, architectural or social aspects of particular sites. Although each painting can stand alone, they are created in a series and are labeled as “chapters,” showing the successive nature of her work. Quaytman was the recipient of the Rome Prize in 1991, and has since been featured in numerous solo exhibitions, including the Queens Museum in 2001, Miguel Abreu gallery in 2008, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2010,. Her work was prominently featured in the 2010 Whitney Biennale and has been collected by the Whitney, New York, MoMA, New York, Guggenheim, New York, and the Tate Modern, London. In 2006 she joined the faculty as a professor in painting in the Masters of Fine Arts program at her alma mater, Bard college.

About Robert De Niro Sr.
De Niro Sr.’s work blended abstract and expressionist styles of painting with traditional representational subject matter, bridging the divide between European Modernism and Abstract Expressionism. He studied at the renowned Black Mountain College with Josef Albers, and later with Hans Hofmann in Provincetown and New York. He went on to exhibit at Peggy Guggenheim’s renowned museum/gallery, Art of this Century in 1945 and 1946, as well as at galleries throughout the U.S. during his career. In 2010, a retrospective exhibition of his work was presented at the Musée Matisse in Nice, France. De Niro Sr.’s work is found in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Hirshhorn Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, among others. His life and work was chronicled in Remembering The Artist: Robert De Niro, Sr., a documentary aired on HBO in June, 2014. The Estate of Robert De Niro, Sr. is represented by DC Moore Gallery, New York, and is advised by Megan Fox Kelly. The prize is funded by Robert De Niro.

For more information on the Estate of Robert De Niro, Sr. visit http://www.robertdenirosr.com/

AboutTribeca Film Institute (http://www.tribecafilminstitute.org)
Tribeca Film Institute champions storytellers to be catalysts for change in their communities and around the world. Each year, we identify a diverse group of exceptional filmmakers and media artists and empower them with funding and resources to fully realize their stories and connect with audiences. Further, our education programs empower students through hands-on training and exposure to socially relevant films, offering young people the media skills necessary to be creative and productive global citizens. We are a year-round nonprofit organization founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, and Craig Hatkoff in the wake of September 11, 2001.