Vilcek Foundation

The Vilcek Foundation is an American nonprofit organization. The foundation's programs include the Vilcek Foundation Prizes.

The Foundation was established in 2000 by Jan and Marica Vilcek, immigrants from the former Czechoslovakia. The mission of the Foundation was inspired by the couple's respective careers in biomedical science and art history, as well as their appreciation for the opportunities offered to them as newcomers to the United States.

Vilcek Prizes
The Vilcek Prizes are awarded to foreign-born permanent residents of the United States, with significant accomplishments in the arts and sciences. The Foundation awards two Vilcek Prizes annually, one in biomedical science and the other in the arts and humanities. Each prize consists of a $100,000 cash award and a commemorative sculpture designed by Austrian-born graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister.

Vilcek Prize for Excellence
The Vilcek Prize for Excellence, introduced in 2019, recognizes immigrants who have profoundly impacted American society and world culture or individuals who champion immigrant causes. The recipients receive a $100,000 cash award and a commemorative diploma designed by the &Walsh agency.

Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise
The Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise are awarded to foreign-born individuals who have demonstrated outstanding achievement during the early stages of their careers. The Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise are awarded each year in the field of biomedical science and a selected art field. Creative Promise applicants are required to submit essays, personal statements, and examples of their work. To be eligible for the prize, applicants must have been born abroad, reside permanently in the United States, and be within the specified age limit. As of 2013, three prizes each were to be awarded in biomedical science and a designated art field. Each recipient is awarded a $50,000 cash prize and a commemorative plaque.

Marica Vilcek Prize in Art History
In 2024, the Vilcek Foundation announced a new prize, The Marica Vilcek Prize in Art History. The prize is named for the Foundation's co-founder Marica Vilcek's career in art history. The prize is awarded to foreign-born art history and museum professionals whose work has had a profound impact on their institutions, and on their field or area of scholarship and curatorial work more broadly. In its inaugural presentation in 2024, three prizes of $100,000 each were awarded to Monika Bincsik, Pierre Terjanian, and Wolfram Koeppe.

The Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise in Curatorial Work recognize immigrant professionals whose work has a profound impact in their field, and on arts and culture more broadly.

Vilcek-Gold Award for Humanism in Healthcare
In 2019, the Vilcek Foundation partnered with the Arnold P. Gold Foundation to create a joint award, the Vilcek-Gold Award for Humanism in Healthcare. The award is given to a foreign-born individual in the United States who has demonstrated an extraordinary impact on humanism in healthcare through their professional achievements.

The 2019 Vilcek-Gold Award for Humanism in Healthcare was given to Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha for her advocacy and interventions in addressing the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Dr. Vivek Murthy, 19th and 21st Surgeon General of the United States, was the recipient of the 2020 Vilcek-Gold Award for Humanism in Healthcare. Dr. Jirayut 'New' Latthivongskorn and Dr. Denisse Rojas Marquez were the joint recipients of the 2021 Vilcek-Gold Award for Humanism in Healthcare.

New American Perspectives
Since 2007, the Vilcek Foundation has been a sponsor of the New American Perspectives (formerly the "New American Filmmakers") program at the Hawaii International Film Festival (HIFF). Curated and presented in collaboration with HIFF, the program celebrates foreign-born filmmakers' contributions to cinema in the United States.

Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise
In 2013, the Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise were changed from recognizing one winner and four finalists to recognizing three winners in each category. The past finalists are listed below.

Art collections
The Vilcek Foundation holds several art collections that are promised gifts from founders Jan and Marica Vilcek. These collections include the American Modernism Collection, which traces the development of artists such as Oscar Bluemner, Ralston Crawford, Stuart Davis, and Marsden Hartley, as well as the movement as a whole; the Native American Pottery Collection, which consists primarily of objects by Acoma, Hopi, Cochiti, Kewa, Tesuque, Zia, and Zuni potters, dating from the 19th and 20th centuries; and the Pre-Columbian Collection, which features objects from across the pre-Columbian world, with an emphasis on the art of Mesoamerica, and a Collection of Art by Immigrant Artists.

Events and exhibitions
In 2019, the Vilcek Foundation opened its new headquarters on Manhattan's Upper East Side, which includes two floors of gallery space. The gallery is the site of free, public exhibitions based on the Vilcek Foundation Art Collections. The Vilcek Foundation also partners with institutions throughout the United States and around the globe to develop and share exhibitions featuring work from the Vilcek Foundation Art Collections with the wider public.

Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery (2022-2025)
In July 2022, the Vilcek Foundation supported the development and opening of the exhibition, Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The exhibition features works of Pueblo Pottery from the Vilcek Foundation Collection and from the collection of the Indian Arts Research Center at the School for Advanced Research. The exhibition was curated by a group of more than 60 artists, historians, and stewards of Native American art, the Pueblo Pottery Collective, and is accompanied by a catalogue from Merrell Publishers. In July 2023, the exhibition opened in New York with works on view at the Vilcek Foundation and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Nari Ward: Home of the Brave (2022-2023)
In May 2022, the Vilcek Foundation opened an exhibition, Nari Ward: Home of the Brave, featuring sculptures and installations by Jamaican-born artist and Vilcek Prize winner Nari Ward. The exhibition was on view by appointment in the Vilcek Foundation headquarters through March, 2023.

Ralston Crawford: Air + Space + War (2021-2022)
The Vilcek Foundation presented its second major exhibition featuring works by American Modernist Ralston Crawford, following Ralston Crawford: Adventurer in the Arts. Curated by Emily Schuchardt Navratil, this landmark exhibition collected an extensive group of drawings, paintings, and photographs that document the influence of Crawford's experiences in the U.S. military on his life and work.

Ralston Crawford: Air + Space + War centers on commissions Crawford undertook at the Curtiss-Wright Aircraft Plant in Buffalo, New York, and his assignment to document nuclear weapons tests conducted by the U.S. Joint Army/Navy Task Force at Bikini Atoll for Fortune Magazine in 1946.

Ralston Crawford: Air + Space + War opened at the Brandywine River Museum of Art in June 2021, where it was on view through September 2021. The exhibition subsequently opened at the Dayton Art Institute in October 2021, where it was on view through January 2022.

Ralston Crawford: Torn Signs (2019)
Ralston Crawford: Torn Signs was the first exhibition shown in the Vilcek Foundation's headquarters at 21 East 70th Street, New York, New York. The exhibition features works by American Modernist Ralston Crawford. Ralston Crawford: Torn Signs opened in April 2019, and was on view through November, 2019. A digital exhibition featuring selected works from the exhibition was shared on the Vilcek Foundation website from 2020 – 2021.

Curated by Emily Schuchardt Navratil, Ralston Crawford: Torn Signs explores the national and international influences on the multifaceted Canadian-born artist. Although he earned acclaim early in his career for his Precisionist paintings of an industrialized America, Crawford devoted the latter part of his career to abstract painting with a remarkable emotional dimension. Ralston Crawford: Torn Signs focuses on two series—"Torn Signs" and "Semana Santa"—that the artist developed over the last two decades of his life.

The Synchromists and Oscar Bluemner's Sonnet Series (2020-2022)
In early 2020, the Vilcek Foundation launched two concurrent exhibitions in the Vilcek Foundation's headquarters, The Synchromists, and Oscar Bluemner's Sonnet Series.

The Synchromists includes works by Morgan Russell and Stanton Macdonald-Wright, the founders of Synchromism.

Oscar Bluemner's Sonnet Series comprises a series of sketches for paintings by Oscar Bluemner based on 12 sonnets by poet Eirene Mungo-Park.

The exhibitions were displayed at the Vilcek Foundation in the spring of 2020; as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the foundation pivoted to launch these exhibitions online on the foundation's website. Both exhibitions are now part of the Vilcek Foundation's traveling exhibition initiative.

In Summer of 2022 The Synchromists opened at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid.

Marsden Hartley: Adventurer in the Arts (2021)
Marsden Hartley: Adventurer in the Arts debuted at the Bates College Museum of Art in Lewiston, Maine in September, 2021. Curated by Emily Schuchardt Navratil, Marsden Hartley: Adventurer in the Arts brings together over 35 paintings and drawings spanning four decades of artwork by American Modernist Marsden Hartley.

To organize this unique exhibition, the Vilcek Foundation partnered with the Bates College Museum of Art, home to the Marsden Hartley Memorial Collection.

The exhibition is accompanied by a full-colour catalogue from Merrell Publishers.

Earlier events and exhibitions
The Vilcek Foundation's former headquarters, also on the Upper East Side, was the host of exhibitions and events featuring the work of immigrant artists, designers, filmmakers, and others.

Publications

 * Kinsel, Rick, et al. Grounded in Clay : The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery. Merrell Publishers, 2022.
 * Kinsel, Rick, et al. Ralston Crawford, Air + Space + War. Merrell Publishers Limited ; in association with Vilcek Foundation, 2021.
 * Kinsel, Rick, et al. Marsden Hartley : Adventurer in the Arts. Merrell Publishers Limited ; in association with Vilcek Foundation, 2020.
 * Agee, William C., et al. Masterpieces of American Modernism : From the Vilcek Collection. Merrell Publishers Limited, 2013.
 * Langholtz, Gabrielle, and Rick Kinsel. A Place at the Table : New American Recipes from the Nation's Top Foreign-Born Chefs. Prestel, 2019.
 * Agee, William C., et al. Ralston Crawford : Torn Signs. Merrell Publishers Ltd., in association with Vilcek Foundation, 2019.
 * Vilcek Foundation. American Odysseys : Writings by New Americans. First Dalkey Archive edition, Dalkey Archive Press, 2013.