Trisha Baga, Laylah Ali, and Kay WalkingStick Among Anonymous Was A Woman Awardees
Each of the 15 artists, all over 40, will receive an unrestricted $50,000 cash award.
Anonymous Was A Woman (AWAW), a nonprofit organization supporting women, trans, and non-binary artists above 40, has announced its 2026 award recipients. The awards, which offer unrestricted $50,000 grants, recognize the work of 15 artists working in various media across the United States. AWAW was founded in 1996 by artist Susan Unterberg in response to the National Endowment for the Arts decision to discontinue individual-based grants.
The program was inspired by Virginia Woolf's quote from A Room of One's Own (1929): "I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman."
Laylah Ali, Marsha Pels, Beatriz Cortez, and Katherine Sherwood are among the awardees. Cherokee Nation painter Kay WalkingStick, now 91 years old, is the oldest recipient. New York City-based video and installation artist Trisha Baga, aged 41, has just met the program's age cutoff.
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