I missed this last week, but the Gish Prize Trust has announced the winner of this year’s Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, “given annually to an individual who has “made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind’s enjoyment and understanding of life””, and it is Louise Erdrich.
J.P. Morgan Chase Bank is trustee of the Gish Prize Trust — and their site hosts the re-directed official prize pages — but they haven’t yet updated the pages to include this news, last I checked (which seems like pretty poor performance from trustees, but what do I know ?), so see, for example, Hillel Italie’s 25 September AP report, Louise Erdrich wins the Gish Prize, a top arts honor. .
The AP report doesn’t mention how much cash Erdrich will be receiving, but the press release for last year’s winner states that this is: “is one of the most prestigious honors given to individual artists in the United States and bears one of the largest cash awards, currently valued at more than $250,000”.
The amount is not exactly specific, suggesting the prize-money is tied to some formula that fluctuates depending on how well the trust’s investments do.
It seems to fluctuate wildly: while in 2023 the award was: “currently valued at approximately $250,000”, in 2024 it was: “currently valued at more than $450,000”; back in 2014 it was also up to US$300,000.
Those are some pretty big swings, especially 2023 to 2025 …..
It’ll be interesting to see how much Erdrich gets to take home ….. – Read More
