Naomi Beckwith Photo by David Head, courtesy the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
The High Museum of Art in Atlanta has bestowed the 2024 edition of its annual David C. Driskell Prize, which honours contributions to contemporary art by Black artists and art historians, to Naomi Beckwith, the deputy director and chief curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Museum. In addition to receiving $50,000, Beckwith will be formally honoured at the 19th annual Driskell Prize Gala in Atlanta on 26 April.
“Beckwith has a long and illustrious track record of championing Black artists and their contributions to the field, so it’s only fitting that we recognise and support her work with the 2024 Driskell Prize,” Rand Suffolk, the director of the High Museum, said in a statement. “We look forward to celebrating her at the year’s gala and to welcoming her into the company of our distinguished prize recipients.”
In her 15-year career as a curator, Beckwith has organised acclaimed exhibitions and published important scholarship exploring the impact of Black identity and culture on the practices of myriad contemporary artists across different genres and media, including Arthur Jafa, Rashid Johnson, Howardena Pindell, Jimmy Robert and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.
Since joining the Guggenheim in 2021, she has overseen the collections and exhibitions programmes at its various sites. Beckwith’s positions before her tenure at the Guggenheim included a curatorial role at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, where she curated Howardena Pindell: What Remains to Be Seen (2018), the artist’s landmark survey.
Beckwith started out as a curatorial fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. She later served as an associate curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem, where she organised 30 Seconds off an Inch (2009-10), an exhibition featuring more than 40 artists of colour. She also worked on the advisory team for Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America, the New Museum exhibition conceived by the late curator Okwui Enwezor.
Beckwith sat on the jury of the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015, and has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues and publications, including Artforum, Frieze and The New York Times.
“I am equal parts elated and humbled to receive the Driskell Prize,” Beckwith said in a statement. “Previous recipients are my mentors, my models and my inspiration, and I am truly honored to be included in this illustrious cohort and contribute to our shared mission of making the most expansive art history imaginable.”
The Driskell Prize, named for the renowned African American artist and art scholar David C. Driskell, was established by the High Museum in 2005 as the first national award to celebrate an artist or scholar’s original, significant contributions to the canons of African American art or art history. Past recipients of the prize include the artists Ebony G. Patterson (in 2023), Amy Sherald (2018) and Mark Bradford (2016), and the curators Naima J. Keith (in 2017) and Kellie Jones (2005).
