According to Randy Kennedy in the New York Times, the prize โ established by George Wein, a founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, in honor of his wife, Joyce Alexander Wein, a trustee of the museum who died in 2005 โ has been given every year since 2006 to established or emerging African-American artists.
Ms. Crosby, 32, who recently moved to Los Angeles, has become known for large-scale paintings that depict African and American domestic scenes. The scenes are visually complicated with collage elements drawn from Nigerian lifestyle magazines, her own photo albums and the Internet, works that, as Smithsonian Magazine wrote,
“explore a complex topic โ the tug she feels between her adopted home in America and her native country.”
Ms. Crosbyโs work has recently been featured in a solo show at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and was included in the New Museumโs 2015 Triennial. The prestigious Victoria Miro gallery in London began to represent Ms. Crosby earlier this year, and her work is now the subject of anexhibition at the gallery, organized by the critic Hilton Als.
Thelma Golden, the Studio Museumโs director, said Ms. Crosby was chosen because of her workโs โgreat innovation and promiseโ and also because she โtruly represents the global nature of the Studio Museumโs mission and reach.โ
Source: The New York Times
