Kara Walker, 2020 Helena Adelia Metcalf Award Recipient
The Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf Award honors alumni who have achieved outstanding distinction in their life’s work in a professional field, or in community, public or humanitarian service.
Kara Walker is best known for her candid investigation of race, gender, sexuality, and violence through silhouetted figures that have appeared in numerous exhibitions worldwide. Born in Stockton, California in 1969, Walker was raised in Atlanta, Georgia from the age of 13. She is the recipient of many awards, notably the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Achievement Award in 1997 and the United States Artists, Eileen Harris Norton Fellowship in 2008. Walker is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (elected 2012) and the American Philosophical Society (elected 2018). She was also named an Honorary Royal Academician by the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 2019.
Photo by Ari Marcopoulos.
