Artist and designer Maya Lin won this year’s Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, a $300,000 arts award, the prize’s trust announced this week. Best known for her design of the 1982 Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., Lin’s current project is a memorial on climate loss and biodiversity called “What is Missing?”
“I am deeply touched and grateful to become a part of this astonishing line of Prize winners, all of whom were selected because of the very simple but powerful goal set down by Lillian Gish: to bring recognition to the contributions that artists make to society, and to encourage others to follow on that path,” Lin said in a press release from the award’s trust. “Because I have been donating so much of my time over the past seven years to a single long-term project, What Is Missing?, the award will make an enormous difference in enabling me to move the work forward.”
Over its 21-year history, the award has been given to artists in a myriad of professions from musicians to writers, including Frank Gehry, FAIA, and lighting designer Jennifer Tipton. Lin will be formally presented with the award on Nov. 12 at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
