Overview

• Each artist receives an unrestricted $250,000 award, with honorees to be celebrated at an October ceremony in Pittsburgh.
• The Heinz Awards select six recipients annually across arts, economy, and environment; since 1993 the program has honored 186 people with more than $32 million.
• New York–based Jennifer Packer is recognized for intimate, textural figurative painting and has held solo exhibitions at the Whitney, MOCA Los Angeles, the Renaissance Society, and the Serpentine.
• Portland-based Marie Watt, an enrolled citizen of the Seneca Nation, works across textiles, printmaking, and sculpture, often engaging communities through her Blanket Stories series and sewing circles.
• Teresa Heinz praised both artists’ contributions in statements, and recent reporting notes Watt was commissioned to collaborate with Nick Cave on a work for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.