Virginia Jaramillo and Chitra Ganesh were named among 2020’s Anonymous Was a Woman grantees.
Chitra Ganesh, After the Storm (2019). Courtesy Anonymous Was a Woman.
Anonymous Was a Woman (AWAW) announced the recipients of its 25th annual awards, which recognize women artists over the age of 40 for their contributions to the art world. The recipients of the 2020 award include D.Y. Begay, Linda Goode Bryant, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Elena del Rivero, Chitra Ganesh, Karen Gunderson, Virginia Jaramillo, Claudia Joskowicz, Karyn Olivier, and Juana Valdes.
The artists, who range in age from 45 to 81 and work in mediums including painting, installation, performance, photography, and film, will each receive an unrestricted grant of $25,000. The 2020 awards mark the second round of funds disbursed by the organization this year. In April, AWAW released $250,000 in grants of up to $2,500 to 159 artists who had been impacted by the COVID-19 crisis.
Susan Unterberg, the organization’s founder, said in a statement:
I founded Anonymous Was A Woman to fill a void that I witnessed personally: support for women artists in the middle stages of their careers. This past year has brought into sharp focus the challenges faced by women in all professions, as they balance personal commitments with the time and space to make work, and by artists in particular, as the cultural sector has suffered disproportionately during the pandemic. We are honored to recognize these ten artists, who continue to make astonishing work regardless of headwinds.
According to Artsy data, a number of the 2020 grantees have seen significant increases in the number of inquiries on the platform. Interest in works by Jaramillo have seen a steady uptick over the past three years, with inquiries more than tripling between 2018 and 2020. Between 2018 and 2019, inquiries on works by Ganesh nearly quadrupled, with interest this year on track to match last year’s numbers.
