Nigerian-born photocollage artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby has been named among the 60 recipients of the United States Artists (USA) fellowship.
The recipients who were drawn from 22 American states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico will each receive a $50,000 cash award.
This is yet another addition to the many awards Njideka Akunyili Crosby has won in her career.
The daughter of the heroic Nigerian drug czar Dr. Dora Akunyili, Ms. Crosby has received several recognitions and awards for her art, ranging from being recognised as one of Foreign Policy’s Leading 100 Global Thinkers of 2015, listed as one of 2016’s Financial Times Women of the Year, being selected for the 2017 MacArthur Fellows Program and making the 2019 TIME 100 Next list.
Njideka Akunyili Crosby also holds the record for the most expensive artwork ever sold by a Nigerian and the fourth most expensive by an African.
She earned that accolade in 2018 when her work Bush Babies (2017) sold for $3.4 million at Sotheby’s New York.
In a statement praising the artists, United States Artists president and CEO Deana Haggag said, “We are grateful for every artist whose artmaking, music, writing, and more is helping us to navigate and cope through this harrowing time in our country.
“The 2021 USA Fellows are a testament to the power of art in shaping the world around us and navigating its complexities.”
Who is Njideka Akunyili Crosby?
Njideka Akunyili Crosby was born in Enugu, Nigeria, in 1983 and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. The artist was awarded an honorary doctorate from Swarthmore College in May 2019. She is also the recipient of a 2017 MacArthur Fellowship and has received a number of awards and grants, including the Prix Canson, 2016; Next Generation honour, New Museum, 2015; Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize, 2015; and the James Dicke Contemporary Artist Prize, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2014, among others. She was an Artist in Residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem in 2011-2012. In 2019, the artist participated in the 58th Venice Biennale.
Akunyili Crosby’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at prominent venues internationally, including at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas (2018-2019); National Portrait Gallery, London (2018-2019); Baltimore Museum of Art (2017-2018); Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida (2016); and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2015).
Work by the artist is held in significant museum collections, including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Baltimore Museum of Art; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Pérez Art Museum, Miami; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; National Museum of African Arts, Washington, DC; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Tate Modern, London; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut; and Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town.
