The Cleveland Arts Prize

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Established in 1960, the Cleveland Arts Prize is the nation’s oldest municipal arts award, honoring artistic excellence across diverse disciplines and career stages.

66th Annual Awards Event

The 2026 Cleveland Arts Prize Winners

Discipline Prizes – $10,000
Chris Webb, Akron Children’s Emerging Artist, Theatre
Aimee Lee, Mid-Career Artist, Design
Dexter Lee Davis, Lifetime Achievement, Visual Arts

Special Prizes
Héctor Castellanos-Lara, Robert P. Bergman Prize
Terry Stewart, Martha Joseph Prize
The Connor Foundation, Barbara S. Robinson Prize
Barbara Stanczak, Special Citation

2026 Akron Children’s Emerging Artist

Chris Webb

Theatre

A globally recognized spoken word artist, an Emmy-winning journalist and a filmmaker from Cleveland, whose one-person show “The End of Black Excellence” premiered at Cleveland Public Theatre in 2025 to sold out shows.

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2026 Mid-Career Artist

Aimee Lee

Design

A papermaking artist and culture bearer who advocates for Korean papermaking practices. Her Fulbright research helped her build the first hanji studio in North America, here in Cleveland.

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2026 Lifetime Achievement Artist

Dexter Lee Davis

Visual Arts

Creates raucous collage-based works by layering fragments of hand-carved woodblock prints with scraps of found paper, transmuting the ordinary into something evocative.

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2026 Robert P. Bergman Prize

Héctor Castellanos-Lara

Artistic Director of Parade the Circle, who has collaborated with the Cleveland Museum of Art for more than two decades through Parade the Circle, Chalk Festival and Winter Lights.

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2026 Martha Joseph Prize for Distinguished Service to the Arts

Terry Stewart

Emeritus President and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where he served from 1999 to 2013. His leadership brought the Induction Ceremony to Cleveland every other year and kept the Library and Archives in the city.

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2026 Barbara S. Robinson Prize for the Advancement of the Arts

The Connor Foundation

Established by Chris and Sara Connor and run by daughter Erin Connor Reif, supporting Northeast Ohio organizations across health and wellness, education, the arts, and the preservation of nature.

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2026 Special Citation

Barbara Stanczak

Sculptor and arts educator. Working primarily in wood and stone, her sculptures explore the relationship between natural and crafted forms. She led the Cleveland Institute of Art’s Foundations program for 36 years.

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