The J.M. Kaplan Fund has long supported design and architecture projects through exhibitions, socially-engaged initiatives, and publications. In 2013, Furthermore grants in publishing, a wing of Kaplan devoted to supporting book publishing for the arts, founded the yearly Alice Award to honor and recognize achievements in illustrated books and “the special sense of intimacy it affords.” Furthermore hosted a celebration in the Rare Book Room of The Strand Book Store on October 25 to announce this year’s Alice winner.
The Alice jury selected a shortlist from hundreds of books that received aid from Furthermore: African Art in the Barnes Foundation, The Triumph of L’Art nègre and the Harlem Renaissance, Apparitions, Frottages and Rubbings from 1860 to Now, Making it Modern, The Folk Art Collection of Elie and Viola Nadelman, and A Portrait of Fashion: Six Centuries of Dress at the National Portrait Gallery. The jury then selected a fifth title, Kentucky by Design: The Decorative Arts and American Culture, as the winner of the 2016 Alice Award. The book, a catalogue for the eponymous exhibition, is published by the University of Kentucky Press. It celebrates the 80th anniversary of the Federal Art Project’s Index of American Design which was part of the WPA/Federal Art Project in the 1930s. The Alice comes with an award of $25,000.
