Emma Safir Awarded 2026 Saint-Gaudens Fellowship
The Trustees of the Saint-Gaudens Memorial in Cornish, N.H. are pleased to announce that Emma Safir has been named recipient of the 2026 Saint-Gaudens Fellowship. This prestigious award is given to an emerging artist with an exhibition record who demonstrates exceptional talent and will benefit from the accompanying monetary grant at this stage in their career.
Upon receiving the award, Emma Safir commented: “I am truly honored to receive the Saint-Gaudens Fellowship. In addition to having the opportunity to participate in the ongoing conversation of the artist fellows that have come before me, I am thrilled to have the resources that afford me freedom to explore and expand my practice in new ways. I’m looking forward to visiting Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park this summer, and can’t wait to see how it informs the work I will make for summer 2027.”
Fellowship Committee Co-Chair Patricia Cronin noted, “Congratulations to Emma Safir, because this year’s fellowship was extremely competitive. For the first time, eminent sculpture curators from prestigious institutions served as external nominators and Safir rose to the top during the jury’s deliberations. Safir uses a wide variety of media, including painting, photography, digital manipulation, antiquarian textile techniques, and sculpture. Her works of art start as photos of “privacy solutions,” such as privacy glass and reflections. These images are manipulated and printed on fabric. As the process continues, Safir’s original works move further away from the original image, but not with intentional perfection in mind. The altered work of art often changes medium and certainly meaning as it moves away from that first-generation photo.”
Safir was drawn to the Fellowship in order to apply her ideas to the formal, celebratory “masque.” These lavish open-air parties combined performance, dance, music, song, and poetry, and, in their earliest incarnations hundreds of years ago, were intended to please monarchs. The subject matter was often mythical or allegorical and celebrants wore masks, blurring the line between audience and performers. In celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s arrival in Cornish, in June 1905 Cornish Colony held its own performance on the grounds of the sculptor’s home, “A Masque of ‘Ours,’ The Gods and The Golden Bowl.” For Safir, that occasion presents an opportunity to further consider the line between public and private worlds and reconsider an event that took place more than 120 years ago. Safir earned an MFA in painting and printmaking from Yale University and a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in printmaking. The annual Saint-Gaudens Fellowship reflect the ideals of American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who was an innovative sculptor and a mentor to emerging artists. The Fellow’s works are expected to enhance public interest in his life, work, and creative process. Safir will exhibit at the Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park in summer 2027.
About the Saint-Gaudens Memorial Founded in 1919 by family and friends of the sculptor, the Saint-Gaudens Memorial works in partnership with the National Park Service to preserve Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s home, studios, gardens, and collections, and to sponsor exhibitions, concerts, fellowships, and educational programs. Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park is open to the public seasonally from May through October. https://saint-gaudens.org/
Contact: Jackeline Rocha, Executive Director |
