The Newport Annual Prize Winners

Ann L. Daum's oil painting Portrait of Migrant Blueberry Harvester has won the two top prizes in the Newport Annual Members' Juried Exhibition, which opened on February 6 and runs through May 23 at the Newport Art Museum. Guest Juror Mónica Ramírez-Montagut, Curator of The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut, selected Daum's painting for Best-in-Show and Newport Art Museum Curator Nancy Whipple Grinnell awarded the Newport Art Museum Award. Executive Director Lisa Goddard and Grinnell announced award winners in multiple categories during a reception at the Museum on Friday evening, February 5.

The Newport Annual is the largest, most comprehensive exhibition of regional contemporary art in the state. Two hundred and ninety artists entered the juried show this year. Ramírez-Montagut selected 92 for the exhibition and awarded prizes in six categories. She commented, "The works selected for this exhibition present (an) untraditional take on established notions, ideas and/or techniques. They challenge our take on nature, architecture, identity; they play with the boundaries between figuration and abstraction; experiment with certain techniques or continue working with some that are not considered cutting edge, such as collage."

Ramírez-Montagut said of Daum's work,“[This] seemingly traditional landscape has been updated by inserting the portrait of the faceless, possibly immigrant (thus invisible) worker.”

Special thanks to all our friends and business sponsors who underwrote this year's prizes in the Newport Annual Members' Juried Exhibition. Our heartfelt thanks go to Guest Juror Mónica Ramírez-Montagut, Curator of The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut.