The American artists Jennifer Packer and Marie Watt were revealed as the winners of this year’s Heinz Awards for the Arts on Tuesday (16 September). This marks the 30th edition of the awards, which are bestowed by the Pittsburgh-based Heinz Family Foundation and come with an unrestricted cash prize of $250,000 for each artist. The awards are named for the US Senator John Heinz (1938-91) and honour individuals working in the arts, economy and environment. A ceremony honouring this year’s winners in all three categories will be held in Pittsburgh next month.
The two artists are widely celebrated for their work in very different media, with Packer working primarily as a painter (and occasionally in drawing) while Watt’s practice is more materially wide-ranging but rooted in her heritage as a member of the Turtle Clan of the Seneca Nation of Indians.
Packer, who was born in Philadelphia in 1984, earned her BFA from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University and her MFA from Yale University, has developed a distinctive style of boldly colourful, texturally fluid figurative painting. Her practice spans still lifes and portraits; the latter in particular have a psychological intensity and sense of intimacy that can be quite haunting, with figures alternately seeming to dissolve into their surroundings or radiate off the canvas with chromatic intensity.
Jennifer Packer, Eric, 2012-13 Photo: Jason Wyche; courtesy of the artist, Corvi-Mora, London and Sikkema Malloy Jenkins, New York
“Storytelling is at the center of how we understand ourselves and everything else,” Packer said in a statement. “Most stories, regardless of their significance, are held solely in the body or in language, and they disappear when that body is lost. I care very deeply about many things and am certain that few will try to contain them in the way I know they deserve to be held.”
She has had solo shows at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Renaissance Society in Chicago and the Serpentine Gallery in London. She is represented by Sikkema Malloy Jenkins in New York and Corvi-Mora in London.
“Jennifer’s work is at once infused with beauty and grief,” Teresa Heinz, John’s widow and the chairman of the Heinz Family Foundation, said in a statement. “Her paintings bear witness to our unfolding history, compelling us to move beyond mere reflection to a place of changed understanding and respectful connection to her subjects and their stories.”
Watt, who was born in 1967 in Seattle and is based in Portland, Oregon, takes inspiration from Indigenous traditions and proto-feminist Haudenosaunee teachings to make works that range from monumental steel sculpture to delicate textiles incorporating Native American beads and jingles. One of her best-known series, the Blanket Stories sculptures, incorporates donated blankets that are folded, stacked and sometimes punctuated by large steel beams. The resulting monuments meld personal stories with the formal language of modern architecture and Minimalist sculpture.
“Many blankets, particularly wool blankets and quilts, are passed down through generations,” Watt said in a statement. “We are received into this world in blankets and in many ways depart in a blanket, and in between we are constantly imprinting on them—worn areas, stained bits and mended parts are like beauty marks and part of the object’s history.”
Marie Watt, Untitled (Sapling & Flint, Twin Columns), 2020 Marc Strauss Gallery
Watt had a solo exhibition last year at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. She has also had solo institutional shows at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas, the Buffalo History Museum in western New York and the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum in Santa Fe. She is represented by Marc Straus in New York, Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco and PDX Contemporary Art in Portland. Last week it was revealed that she has been commissioned to collaborate with Nick Cave on a new work for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.
Teresa Heinz praised Watt for “her thought-provoking work that graciously allows us entry to Indigenous traditions, culture and histories and to the application of that collective wisdom to contemporary life”. She added, in a statement: “Marie’s art brings us joy, and her welcoming practice of engaging the community is a model and inspiration for creating lasting intergenerational connections.”
In addition to Packer and Watt, the Heinz Family Foundation honoured two recipients each in the fields of economy and the environment. Over their 30 editions to date since 1993, the Heinz Awards have now been bestowed on a total of 186 honorees, with more than $32m distributed. Visual artists recognised in past years include Jennie C. Jones and Gala Porras-Kim in 2024, Kevin Beasley and Roberto Lugo in 2023, Cauleen Smith and vanessa german in 2022, and Sanford Biggers and Tanya Aguiñiga in 2021. With its unrestricted purse of $250,000, the Heinz Award is among the most financially significant prizes available to contemporary artists.
