2013 GREENFIELD PRIZE WINNER  |  Trenton Doyle Hancock

Trenton Doyle Hancock was born in 1974 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Raised in Paris, Texas, Hancock earned his BFA from Texas A&M University, Commerce, and his MFA from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University, Philadelphia. Influenced by the history of painting, especially Abstract Expressionism, Hancock transforms traditionally formal decisions—such as the use of color, language, and pattern—into opportunities to create new characters, develop sub-plots, and convey symbolic meaning. Hancock’s paintings often rework Biblical stories that the artist learned as a child from his family and local church community. Balancing moral dilemmas with wit and a musical sense of language and color, Hancock’s works create a painterly space of psychological dimensions.

Trenton Doyle Hancock was featured in the 2000 and 2002 Whitney Biennial exhibitions, one of the youngest artists in history to participate in this prestigious survey. His work has been the subject of one-person exhibitions at Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; and Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, the Seattle Art Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh. The recipient of numerous awards, Hancock lives and works in Houston, where he was a 2002 Core Artist in Residence at the Glassell School of Art of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. (Biography info – www.pbs.org)

2013 KEYNOTE SPEAKER  |  Jerry Saltz

The Hermitage Artist Retreat, along with the Greenfield Foundation, is very pleased to announce that Jerry Saltz, senior art critic and columnist for New York Magazine, will be the keynote speaker at the 2013 Greenfield Prize Award Dinner being held on Sunday, April 21, 2013 in Sarasota, FL. Mr. Saltz joins a list of impressive speakers that have appeared at the dinner, including Pulitzer Prize winning composer David Lang, Public Theatre Artistic Director Osker Eustis, renowned American Painter James Rosenquist, and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Conductor and Music Director for Aspen Music Festival and School Robert Spano. The prestigious $30,000 Prize rotates among three arts disciplines: theater, music and visual art. The 2013 Greenfield Prize will be presented in visual art to an American painter. Past winners were Playwright Craig Lucas, Composer Eve Beglarian, Visual Artist Sanford Biggers, Playwright John Guare, and Composer and Jazz Pianist Vijay Iyer.

Jerry Saltz, has been senior art critic and a columnist for New York magazine since 2006. Before that, Saltz was senior art critic for The Village Voice newspaper. His criticisms have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize three times and featured in two books, Seeing Out Loud and Seeing Out Louder. Saltz was the sole advisor for the 1995 Whitney Biennial and has served as a visiting critic to many schools and universities including The School of Visual Arts, Columbia University, Yale University, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

If you would like to see a video of Jerry talking about art, click HERE.

To vist the archive of Jerry's writing for New York Magazine, click HERE.