New Prize Will Award Unprecedented USD$1M to Artists to Help Realize an Ambitious Project

The Nomura Art Award, funded by Japan-based financial services company Nomura Holdings, will offer US$1M to those working in the contemporary visual arts. The prize will be awarded to ‘an artist who has created a body of work of major cultural significance’, according to the press release. In addition, they are offering two US$100,000 awards to early-career artists. 

The newly created prize is intended to give financial support to artists for an ‘ambitious new project that the winner did not previously have the means to realize’. It will be the largest prize in the arts sector, surpassing the Turner Prize, which awards GB£25,000, and the ArtPrize, which awards US$200,000.  

The 2019 jury members include Doryun Chong, chief curator at Hong Kong’s M+ museum, Max Hollein, director of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Nicholas Serota, chair of Arts Council England. The late curator and critic Okwui Enwezor, who passed away earlier this month aged 55, also served on the jury.  

The winner of the emerging artist award will be announced in Kyoto in May, while the US$1M prize will be awarded during a gala in Shanghai in October.