Warren Newton Seelig Named a USA Fellow
Bloomfield Hills, Mich., January 23, 2018 – Cranbrook Academy of Art is pleased to announce that Warren Newton Seelig (Fiber ’74) was named a 2018 United States Artist Fellow. Spread across the disciplines of Architecture & Design, Craft, Dance, Media, Music, Theater & Performance, Traditional Arts, Visual Art, and Writing, each USA Fellow receives an unrestricted $50,000 cash award. This year, 45 Fellows were selected from a diverse peer-nominated pool of more than 500 applicants.
Seelig becomes the 12th Academy graduate to receive a United States Artist Fellowship since the program was launched in 2006.
“I could not be more thrilled with the 2018 USA Fellows, or with the tremendous artistic output, and potential, they represent,” said United States Artists President & CEO Deana Haggag. “They produce some of the most moving, incisive, and powerful artistic work in this country, and it is our privilege to honor them. Collectively, they are a reminder of the beauty produced by hardworking artists on a daily basis, too much of which is often overlooked.”
Warren Newton Seelig is a sculptor and distinguished visiting professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where he teaches, curates, and writes about fiber, textiles, and material studies. Seelig’s work has been included in more than 30 major museum exhibitions in the United States, Europe, Japan and Korea, and he has participated in solo and group shows worldwide. His work, which is part of collections throughout the United States, was most recently acquired by the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Seelig is the recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and three fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. He has lectured extensively including at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy Amsterdam, the Royal College of Art in London, and the National University of the Arts in Seoul. He also is a regular visiting critic in the Textile Department at the Rhode Island School of Design and a mentor in the graduate program at the Maine College of Art. Seelig received a BS from the Philadelphia College of Textiles & Science and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art.
According to United States Artists (USA), Fellows are selected through a rigorous, highly competitive process involving hundreds of experts, scholars, administrators and artists. Created in 2006 by the Ford, Rockefeller, Rasmuson and Prudential Foundations with $22 million in seed funding, United States Artists was founded to address the lack of unrestricted funding available to artists. USA is currently funded by a broad range of philanthropic foundations and individuals committed to cultivating the vibrant character of contemporary culture in America. Through its signature USA Fellows program, United States Artists has distributed more than $22 million in support of 500 artists.
The 2018 Fellowship Awards were made possible by: Anonymous, Sarah Arison, Barr Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Peter D. and Julie Fisher Cummings, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Rasmuson Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Fred and Eve Simon Charitable Foundation, Paul and Annette Smith, Windgate Charitable Foundation, Helen Zell, and the United States Artists Board of Trustees.
To see the full list of Academy graduates who have received awards, visit the Alumni Awards page of our website. For more information on this year’s group of USA Fellows, visit their website.
