ICA names Lorna Simpson $100,000 Meraki Artist Award winner

The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston announced world renowned artist Lorna Simpson as the 2026 recipient of its Meraki Artist Award.

The ICA created the annual $100,000 award to recognize women artists, inspired by the Greek word “meraki,” which means “to pour your soul into something.”

“I am incredibly grateful to be recognized as the next Meraki Artist Award recipient,” said Simpson, 65, in a statement from the ICA. “It is an honor to receive an award that celebrates the creativity and care of today’s artists.”

ICA director Nora Burnett Abrams said the initiative helps the museum deepen its promise to contemporary artists.

“ The ICA has always really had this comprehensive and robust commitment to celebrating and supporting artists who are working and inspiring us today,” Abrams said in an interview, adding how this award honors people who continue to inspire and reinvent, refine and reflect on their artwork.

Abrams shared that she visited Simpson’s studio and was inspired by work Simpson has yet to share with the public.

“ I don't want to give any spoilers away, but she has a big project coming up in Venice that relates to the exhibition that she had at the [Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York],” Abrams said after hearing Simpson describe the layout for the upcoming work. “ She's so engrossed in and engaged in the power of images, imagery, the way we read things visually.”

Simpson, based in New York City, began her career studying painting and photography. Her early works depicted unidentified Black figures juxtaposed with text, often challenging stereotypes of Black women and questioning conventional views of gender, identity, culture, history and memory. “The whole premise of the work was to engage with the audience in a way they wouldn't be used to — to put them off balance,” said Simpson.

She graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York with a BFA in 1982 and earned an MFA in visual arts from University of California, San Diego in 1985.

Her first solo exhibition was in 1986 at the historic Just Above Midtown Gallery in New York City, an experimental gallery owned by and putting a spotlight on artists of color from 1974 through 1986. In 1990, she had a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York titled “Projects 23: Lorna Simpson” as part of the Elaine Dannheisser Projects Series that still runs today.

In 1990 she became one of the first African American women whose work was displayed at the Venice Biennale.

In recent years, Simpson has included more elements of painting in her work. That reinvention and continued artistic spirit, according to Abrams, is part of the reason Simpson’s artistry aligns with the Meraki award.

“She emerged as an artist through the medium of photography, a kind of aspect of conceptual photography that was exploring a lot of different topics around identity and race and gender,” Abrams said. “And yet in the last decade, she's really charted this whole other path through painting – still using a lot of collage based material, but the works are being brought to life in a really different way.”

Simpson’s art has been acquired by institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Haus der Kunst in Munich and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

The ICA named an upcoming January 2026 exhibition after Simpson’s 2013 work “To My Best Friend.” It’s a collage composed of 122 individual pieces, including found photographs and gold embossed drawings. The exhibit brings together works given, promised or lent by Fotene Demoulas and Tom Coté. Demoulas is a longtime supporter of the ICA and has provided the funding for the museum to present the Meraki Artist Award for ten years. Artist Sarah Sze received the inaugural Meraki prize earlier this year.

“To My Best Friend” will be displayed at the ICA alongside works by other artists such as Olga de Amaral, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Deana Lawson, Laura Owens, Deborah Roberts, Mickalene Thomas, Charlene von Heyl, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Sze. The exhibition will feature Sze’s 2019 triptych painting “Surround Sound (After Studio).”

Simpson will accept the award at next year’s annual Women’s Luncheon on April 27.