Photo by Ryan Collerd, courtesy of The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
(New York, NY - April 7, 2022) - The Estate of Robert De Niro, Sr. is delighted to announce that Mark Thomas Gibson is the 2022 recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation’s Fellowship in Fine Arts, underwritten by Robert De Niro in honor of his father, the painter Robert De Niro Sr., a Guggenheim Fellow in Fine Arts in 1968.
Beginning in 2021, De Niro partnered with The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to endow this new fellowship. Mark Thomas Gibson is the second recipient of the fellowship, the first fellowship awarded in 2021 to the late artist, Peter B. Williams.
Mark Thomas Gibson (b. 1980, Miami, FL) is a visual artist working in painting, print, sculpture, ink and watercolor. Gibson’s paintings, inspired by comics, provide commentary on American history and explore Black representation. Gibson's personal lens on American culture stems from his multifaceted viewpoint as an artist—as a black male, a professor, and American history enthusiast.
Town Crier: April 9th, 2022, 2022, collage on paper, 30 x 22 inches
Photo Credit: Mark Thomas Gibson Studio
Gibson received his BFA from The Cooper Union in 2002 and his MFA from Yale School of Art in 2013. He is represented by M+B in Los Angeles and Loyal in Stockholm. In 2016, he co-curated the traveling exhibition Black Pulp! with William Villalongo. Gibson has released two artist books, Some Monsters Loom Large (2016) and Early Retirement (2017). In October 2021, he had his most recent solo exhibition Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood at M+B Los Angeles. See more of Gibson’s work here.
In 2021, Gibson was awarded residencies at Yaddo and the Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency. He was awarded a Pew Fellowship from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, Philadelphia, PA and a Hodder Fellowship from Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ. Gibson was most recently awarded a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, New York, NY.
The Guggenheim Foundation was founded in 1925 to encourage and support gifted individuals to do their work under the freest possible conditions. From early Fellows like Aaron Copland, Jacob Lawrence, Martha Graham and Zora Neale Hurston, to the more than 125 Fellows who have received the Nobel Prize (including four in 2020), and to the five Fellows who won Pulitzer Prizes in 2020, the Guggenheim Fellowship has both enabled and recognized great achievement.
For more information and to apply, visit GF.org
The Magical Disappearing Action, 2021, ink and acrylic on canvas, 46 x 64 inches
Photo Credit: M+B Los Angeles