Lucelia Award

THE SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM announced on April 27, 2006, that it was awarding the 2006 Lucelia Artist Award to Matthew Coolidge, Director of the Center for Land Use Interpretation.

“I am honored to accept the Lucelia Artist Award on behalf of all of us at the Center for Land Use Interpretation,” said Coolidge. “It is especially meaningful for us to be recognized by the Smithsonian Institution, a venerable colleague in the quest to understand and describe the American Land.”

The Lucelia Artist Award, established in 2001, annually recognizes an American artist under the age of 50 who demonstrates exceptional creativity and has produced a significant body of artwork that is considered emblematic of this period in contemporary art. Jurors nominate artists who will be recognized as one of the most important artists of his or her time.

“Viewed historically, Coolidge and the Center continue a long tradition of attention to the American landscape that encompasses the great Hudson River school painters, Ansel Adams’s photographs and Robert Smithson’s earthwork projects,” the jurors said in a statement. ♦