Artsy explores why San Antonio-based patrons Steven Alan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt founded the Bennett Prize, a biannual grant that will award funding to emerging women painters who live in the U.S. and work in a figurative realist style.
National Museum of Women in the Arts
PITTSBURGH, April 13, 2018 – Women who paint in the figurative realist style are invited to apply for the $50,000 Bennett Prize, the largest ever offered solely to women painters.
San Antonio-based patrons Steven Alan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt have been contemplating how to support female artists for almost a decade, since they first began collecting art. This spring, they founded the Bennett Prize, which Bennett hopes will give female figurative painters “more flexibility to focus on their work” and “more visibility.”
Artsy
With nine artists across six time zones this episode is a great snapshot of the global village that is the figurative art community. Back in August of 2017 Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt was on the podcast talking about an open call for an exhibition she was curating called, “Visions of Venus / Venus’ Visions.”
JohnDalton.me
The Bennett Prize, the largest ever offered solely to women painters, was announced today by art collectors Steven Alan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt, who are endowing the $50,000 biennial prize at The Pittsburgh Foundation.
Fine Art Connoisseur
Endowed by art collectors Steven Alan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt with a $3 million gift, the $50,000 Bennett Prize will spotlight women artists who paint in the figurative realist style and who have not yet achieved full professional recognition — both new artists and those who have painted for many years.
Philanthropy News Digest
A mutual interest in art helped bring San Antonio collectors Steven Alan Bennett and Elaine Melotti Schmidt together. Now they are putting that shared passion to work to benefit others. The couple have endowed the Bennett Prize, a $50,000 biennial award that will be given to female artists who specialize in figurative realist imagery and have not yet received full professional recognition.
San Antonio News-Express
A San Antonio couple, art collectors Steven Alan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt, will begin the inaugural Bennett Prize, the largest prize offered solely to women painters (painting in the figurative realist style). The winner will receive $25,000 annually for two years.
Glasstire
The largest ever art award offered only to women painters, The Bennett Prize, was announced today by art collectors Steven Alan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt, who are endowing the $50,000 biennial prize at The Pittsburgh Foundation.
NEXT Pittsburgh
The largest prize ever offered solely to women painters will be endowed at the Pittsburgh Foundation. The $50,000 Bennett Prize was announced Feb. 19 by art collectors Steven Alan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt of San Antonio, Texas.
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
