5 SoCal artists win $50,000 grants

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BERLIN, GERMANY - MARCH 11: Visitors look at works by Allen Ruppersberg on the opening day of the exhibition "Kompass: Drawings from the MoMA New York" at Martin Gropius Bau museum on March 11, 2011 in Berlin, Germany. The show features works from the Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection and will be open to the public from March 11 through May 29, 2011. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Several prominent artists from Southern California have won fellowships from the United States Artists organization.

Every year, United States Artists presents 50 artists from across the country with grants of $50,000 — no strings attached. In the last six years, they have invested over $15 million in artists.

Five of this year’s recipients are based in Southern California — including local visual artists John Outterbridge and Allen Ruppersberg, theater artist Nancy Keystone, architect Elena Manferdini, and filmmaker Dee Rees.

John Outterbridge and Allen Ruppersberg are two of the awards oldest recipients. Outterbridge was born in 1933 and was a seminal figure within the assemblage movement of the 1960s and 70s. He currently serves as director of the Watts Tower Museum and the Compton Communicative Arts Academy. Ruppersberg, on the other hand, was born in Cleveland in 1944. His work has featured in over 60 solo exhibitions and 200 group shows.

Katharine de Shaw, executive director of United States Artists, told the L.A. Times that recipients have known of their awards since the fall.

“We tell them the good news, then of course we torture them by saying you can only tell one person. We learned that from the MacArthur ["genius" grant] people. If they can't tell anyone at all, they will go out of their minds,” she told the TImes.