The Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis. Photo: Facebook.
Toronto-based painter Rita Letendre and Montreal-based installation artist Hannah Claus are among the five First Nations artists chosen for this year’s Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship.
Each fellowship recipient gets $25,000 USD, as well as inclusion of their work in a fellowship exhibition opening in November 2019. The museum, which is in Indianapolis, will also purchase selections of their work for its permanent collection.
The other artists chosen for the fellowship this year include Matthew Kirk, a painter based in New York; Dyani White Hawk Polk, a painter and mixed media artist from Minneapolis; and Demian DinéYazhí, a multimedia artist from Portland.
Eiteljorg president John Vanausdall said in a fellowship announcement that the museum aims to steward “one of the most important collections of contemporary Native art in the world and to showcase fascinating, important works of Indigenous artists.”
Selectors for the 2019 class of Eiteljorg Fellows included artist Brenda Mallory, curator Ryan Steadman, and curator Rebecca Dobbins.
Past recipients of the Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship include Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, Meryl McMaster, Nadia Myre and Nicholas Galanin, among others.
The exhibition “Blurring the Lines: The Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship 2019” will open November 16, 2019, and continue to February 2, 2020, with a related symposium during its opening week.
