In 1993, Atlanta’s High Museum of Art played host to one of Alison Saar’s first solo exhibitions. This year, the museum announced that it will award the artist the David C. Driskell Prize for her significant contributions to the African American art canon.
Since 2005, the Prize has spotlighted those following in the footsteps of artist and scholar David C. Driskell, a pioneering figure in African diaspora studies. With her win, Saar joins the ranks of equally illustrious honorees including Naomi Beckwith, Ebony G. Patterson, Amy Sherald, and Rashid Johnson. “I am honored to have been chosen as the 2025 recipient of the David C. Driskell Prize,” said Saar in a statement. “When our art is removed from museum exhibitions or our shows are canceled, this prize offers not only validation, but also the support to continue making work that is courageous and truthful—work that is often stifled by the limitations of mainstream institutions.”
The Los Angeles native’s commanding sculptures, installations, and mixed-media works plumb the layered complexities of race, gender, and spiritual identity in America. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. “[Saar’s] sculpture Tobacco Demon has been a fixture in our galleries for decades,” noted High Museum Director Rand Suffolk. “We are honored to recognize her distinguished practice.”
In 2024, Saar was also commissioned by the International Olympic Committee and the city of Paris to create Salon, a permanent public sculpture on the Champs-Élysées, depicting a Black woman holding an olive branch and a flame—an enduring symbol of both peace and power. For this year’s Desert X biennial, Saar unveiled an installation, Soul Service Station, that reconceptualized the gas station as a site for people to fuel their souls, an incisive expression of the isolation and commodification of human life in contemporary society.
Saar’s receipt of the David C. Driskell Prize was announced in New York on Friday during a celebration at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, presented in partnership with CULTURED. The gathering offered a taste of what’s to come in September, when the institution hosts its 20th annual Driskell Prize Gala (featuring a performance by John Legend) at which the artist will be formally honored and presented with the $50,000 prize. “At a time when many of the civil rights milestones achieved by previous generations—by our mothers and grandmothers—are being threatened or dismantled,” Saar noted, “the Driskell Prize empowers Black artists and art historians to push back.”
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