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Arts & Culture
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
News Release
Friday, May 18, 2012
Core Fellow Gabriel Martinez Awarded Fifth Annual $10,000 Long Prize at
2012 Glassell School of Art Benefit and Auction
Prize Recognizes Outstanding Second-Year Core Fellow Each Year
Houston — The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), has given the 2012 Meredith J. Long Core Program Award to Gabriel Martinez. The $10,000 prize, presented at the Glassell School of Art Benefit and Auction Friday, May 11, was inaugurated in 2008 and is given annually to a second-year Core artist-in-residence in recognition of exceptional artistic merit.
Over the past 30 years the Core Program has become an internationally regarded platform, a destination for curators and critics seeking new talent, and a respected forum for artists andcritics to discuss, debate, and develop their work. The highly competitive program awards one and two-year residencies to visual artists and art scholars who have not fully developed a professional career. Core residents are given private studio space or an office, 24-hour access to school facilities and equipment, privileges at the museum’s Hirsch Library and the Fondren Library at nearby Rice University, and an annual stipend.
The Meredith J. Long Core Program Award was developed in order to recognize outstanding artistic achievement in the program, as well as provide financial assistance to the selected artist as he or she leaves the residency program and enters professional life.
Mr. Long and his wife, Cornelia, are longtime supporters of the MFAH and the Houston arts community. Cornelia Long is currently chairman of the museum’s Board of Trustees. Meredith Long is founder of Meredith Long & Co., an art gallery that specializes in 19th- and 20th-century American paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture.
Long Prize recipient Gabriel Martinez received his MFA from Columbia University in 2009 and his BFA from the Corcoran College of Art and Design in 2001. Martinez has been an artist-in-residence at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Fondazione Ratti and the Whitney Independent Study Program. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions across the United States, as well as in Italy and Cuba.
Past winners of the Long Prize include Mequitta Ahuja (2008); Kara Hearn (2009); Lily Cox-Richards (2010); and Steffani Jemison (2011).
The Glassell School of Art
The Glassell School of Art is the teaching wing of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Established in 1927, it was re-named in honor of Alfred C. Glassell, Jr., in 1979. The school has a reputation for outstanding training in the fine arts, and offers the nationally acclaimed Core Residency Program for postgraduate study as well as a wide variety of programs and classes for adults and children through its Studio School and Junior School.
The Glassell Community Outreach Program serves more than 5,500 individuals, including hospitalized children, and hearing and visually impaired people. Gwen Goffe, MFAH associate director of investment and finance, and Lynne Hudson, Houston philanthropist and MFAH trustee, chaired the 2012 benefit, themed “South of the Border.” Over 300 guests arrived for cocktails and dinner, and the crowd later swelled to about 400 for the silent auction portion of the event, featuring work by Core artists, local artists and two works by architect Steven Holl. The event raised approximately $480,000.
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