Anonymous Was A Woman (AWAW) announced its 2021 awards winners including Coco Fusco, professor in the School of Art. The annual award recognizes women-identifying artists over 40 years of age who have made significant contributions, while continuing to create new work, and who are each at a critical juncture in their practice. Professor Fusco is one of 14 award winners who will receive an unrestricted award of $25,000.

Anonymous Was a Woman was founded by artist Susan Unterberg in 1996, partly in response to the decision of the National Endowment for the Arts to cease support of individual artists. The name of the award program, Anonymous Was A Woman, refers to a line in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. Each year, an outstanding group of distinguished women—art historians, curators, writers, and previous winners from across the country—serve as nominators. To date, over 600 notable women have participated as nominators and panelists, and the award has been given to 250 artists.