The sculptor Hugh Hayden ’18SOA, in partnership with Columbia and two prominent New York galleries, has created a scholarship program for students of visual art and art history who have demonstrated leadership in the African-American and African diaspora communities.
The Solomon B. Hayden Fellowships, named for Hayden’s father, will support MFA students focused on sculpture and MA students in the Modern and Contemporary Art: Critical and Curatorial Studies (MODA) program. The fellowships will be funded partially by the Clearing Gallery and the Lisson Gallery.
Hayden, whose work was featured in the Summer 2019 issue of Columbia Magazine, credits the Black Lives Matter movement with inspiring the new fellowship program. He hopes the program will address racial inequities in the art world by providing recipients mentorship and networking opportunities through the participating galleries, in addition to financial support. “These fellowships can give artists access to things that money can’t buy,” he says.
