National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts

HONOREES AND AWARDS
National Academy Museum
& School of Fine Arts

	2008 Artist’s Lifetime Achievement Award Philip Pearlstein, NA Philip Pearlstein (born 1924), is perhaps the leading American realist painter of our time. Alternately dubbed a "post-abstract realist," and the "father of contemporary figurative art", Philip Pearlstein has had a profound influence on the way we view paintings of the human figure. His signature works depicts nudes among disparate objects, treating them as another prop used for its form rather than as portraits, psychological or otherwise. The construction of meaning, Pearlstein claims, is up to us. Pearlstein lives and works in New York City and is represented by the Betty Cuningham Gallery, N.Y. His work is in numerous collections including The Art Institute of Chicago; Brooklyn Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art; National Academy Museum & School of Fine Arts, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He is also the recipient of the Fulbright Hayes Fellow in Italy; National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship; John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship; Artist in Residence, American Academy in Rome; and the National Academy Museum & School of Fine Arts, among other distinguished honors and awards bestowed on him during his long career.
	2008 Award for Contribution and Commitment to the Study, Presentation, and Exhibition of American Art
	Ira Spanierman In 1902 Ira Spanierman's great uncle, Fred left Vienna and opened Old World Antiques on 57th Street in New York City. In 1928 Ira's father Samuel Spanierman founded and presided over Savoy Art and Auction Gallery, located at 5 East 59th Street. In his youth Ira Spanierman received his first exposure to the art business, and for more than a half a century, he has run Spanierman Gallery, now located at 45 East 58th Street. The gallery is dedicated to American art of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries. Over the decades, the gallery has held major exhibitions on artists and thematic topics, accompanied by scholarly catalogues and a number of lectures, seminars, and symposia. Mr. Spanierman's son Gavin now presides over Spanierman Modern, adjacent to Spanierman Gallery. Through his exhibitions and support of art-historical scholarship, Mr. Spanierman has played an important role in the study and appreciation of American art, and of American Impressionism in particular. He is co-author on the forthcoming catalogues raisonné of the work of Willard Metcalf, Theodore Robinson, and John Twachtman. He is also sponsoring the Lloyd Goodrich, Edith Havens Goodrich, and Whitney Museum of American Art catalogue raisonné of the work of Winslow Homer, of which Volumes I and II of the five-volume record have thus far been published. Mr. Spanierman is executive director and president and of the Thomas Cole Foundation and serves on the Boise Art Museum National Advisory Council.
	2008 Honorary Achievement Award Annette Blaugrund, Ph.D. Annette Blaugrund, Ph.D. served as the Director of the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts for over a decade. During Dr. Blaugrund's tenure she developed various exhibitions accompanied by scholarly catalogues that traveled to museums across the U.S.; initiated electronic access to the collections and public programs; oversaw the conservation and proper housing of the Academy's permanent collection and the restoration and cataloguing of the historic library and archives. She also brought about the publication of volume one of the collection catalogue and commenced work on volume two. During her career, Dr. Blaugrund has worked as a curator for major museums, has written numerous books and articles, and has lectured nationally and internationally on diverse subjects in American art. She also taught at Columbia University and sits on several institutional boards. She has received many notable honors including The American Art Journal Award for Outstanding Scholarship, the Victorian Society Award, and was named Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Government, among others.

	2007 AWARD FOR LEADERSHIP, COMMITMENT, AND SUPPORT OF THE ARTS PETER AND PAULA LUNDER Peter and Paula Lunder, nationally recognized collectors and philanthropists, have generously supported major projects to advance the study, preservation, and exhibition of American art. The Lunders provided the lead support for the Lunder Conservation Center at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery. This gift expands on the relationship Peter has with the Smithsonian, where he serves as a Commissioner Emeritus of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and is currently the Vice Chairman of the Smithsonian National Board. Paula sits on the Metropolitan Museum Visiting Committee of the Department of American Paintings and Sculpture. At the Colby College Museum of Art, where the Lunders serve on the governing board, the Lunder Wing for American Art opened in 1999 as the as a result of the Lunder Foundation’s challenge grant. Peter, a 1956 graduate of Colby College, is a lifetime overseer; Paula serves as a Life Trustee there.		Nationally recognized collectors and philanthropists Peter and Paula Lunder receive an award from Academy Director, Annette Blaugrund for their generous support for the advance the study, preservation, and exhibition of American Art.
	2007 ARTIST’S LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD ALEX KATZ, NA The creative work of ALEX KATZ has enriched the lives of people around the world. Known for iconic images of his wife Ada, as well as other figures, Alex Katz’s flattened perspective and reductive images are also found in his brilliant landscapes—particularly those of Maine with which he has a long association. He has exhibited widely and his work is in the collections of such major museums as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Tokyo among many others. He has had many solo museum shows and is represented by Pace Wildenstein, New York. An entire permanent gallery is devoted to his work at the Colby College Museum of Art in Maine, near the Lunder Wing that bears the name of our other honorees. Alex Katz was elected to the National Academy in 1994.		Distinguished artist Alex Katz, receives the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award from National Academy President, Susan Shatter, PNA

2006 AWARD FOR LEADERSHIP, COMMITMENT,
AND SUPPORT OF THE ARTS

J. Steven Manolis

J. Steven Manolis was a founding member of the Advisory Board of the National Academy, which was established in 1991, a member of the Council, and since 2001, Chairman of the Advisory Board.

When not working on behalf of the Academy Mr. Manolis is the Chairman of GHM (USA) LLC Hotels, and is also the Chief Executive Officer of Manolis & Company LLC ("MANACO"), his privately owned real estate merchant bank. Mr. Manolis is also a lead investor and non-executive Chairman of both Microban International (a global firm that provides antibacterial protection for solid state polymeric products) and The World E-Commerce Exchange (a B2B Internet Exchange in Bermuda).

2006 Honorees: J.Steven Manolis and Wolf Kahn, NA

2006 ARTIST’S LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Wolf Kahn, NA

Born in Stuttgart, Germany, 1927, painter Wolf Kahn emigrated to the United States in 1940. He lives and works in New York City and Vermont and is represented by Ameringer & Yohe Fine Art, NY; Jerald Melberg Gallery, NC; Addison Ripley Fine Art, CD; Marianne Friedland Gallery, FL; Thomas Segal Gallery, MD. His work is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and others. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship; Lifetime Achievement Award, Vermont Council on the Arts; Fulbright Grant; and awards at the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Academy. He has served as treasurer of the National Academy and on its Council.