WEST PALM BEACH, FLA.- The Norton Museum of Art recently announced Dr. Deborah Willis as the 2023 Mary Lucille Dauray Artist-in-Residence. The Museum’s residency program began in January 2019 and demonstrates Norton’s deep commitment to fostering creative and intellectual growth for mid- to late-career artists whose work warrants greater attention, and emphasizes the promotion of gender, racial, and ethnic parity in the arts through dedication of two residencies annually for women artists. One is exclusively for an African American or Latina woman artist and is endowed as the Mary Lucille Dauray Artist-in-Residence.

Dr. Willis is a celebrated author, photographer, and acclaimed historian, whose work and research examine iconicity and cultural histories visualizing the black body, women, and gender. Among Willis’s many awards and honors, she was the 2000 MacArthur Fellow. She received an NAACP Image Award for her co-authored book Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery with Barbara Krauthamer in 2014. Willis received praise for her 2021 publication, The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship, which examines the African American experience during the Civil War through a collection of portraits and personal ephemera from the lives of Black soldiers. Most recently, she was awarded the Don Tyson Prize for the Advancement of American Art by the Crystal Bridges Museum.




Dr. Willis's four-week residency will be through January 29. During that time, her work Christmas, 1995, will be on view in the Museum, along with Opportunity,
2015, by her son and renowned artist Hank Willis Thomas. Dr. Willis will give a talk on Sunday, January 29.

This program was made possible by the generosity of the Leonard and Sophie Davis Fund/MLDauray Arts Initiative.

Norton’s Artist-in-Residence program
As part of the Norton’s campus masterplan, three residences on Cranesnest Way, running alongside the Museum’s sculpture garden on the south side of Norton campus, were renovated and transformed into housing and a shared studio for up to two artists at a time. Each artist (and their family) receives their own house during the residency. Another house features two open, flexible studio spaces for the artists to work in. Past artists in residence at the Norton include María Berrío (2021), Addoley Dzegede (2020), Jessica Ingram (2021), Lavar Munroe (2020), and Jaye Rhee (2020). The resident houses are called Hope’s Cottage, named by the Leonard and Sophie Davis Fund/MLDauray Arts Initiative to honor former Norton Director Hope Alswang and the hope for gender parity in the arts; and the Jacques and Natasha Gelman House, named by the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation. The Bruce Gendelman Studios were named by Gail and Alfred Engelberg in honor of Norton Trustee Bruce Gendelman.Artists are not required to produce work as part of their residency but are encouraged to create, study, investigate, and reflect on their artistic practice. Artists are asked to lead at least one educational program during their residencies, which may take the form of a public lecture, critique for art students, master classes, and/or open studio days.The residency is by invitation only. An anonymous committee, comprised of artists, scholars, and curators, nominate artists for consideration. A Museum committee makes the final selection.

Norton Museum of Art
The Norton Museum of Art is home to the leading and most far-ranging collection of art in Florida and the region, with distinguished holdings in American, European, Contemporary, and Chinese art and Photography. In 2019, the Norton unveiled an expansion by Foster + Partners, featuring the new 59,000-square-foot Kenneth C. Griffin Building, which greatly enhanced the Museum’s facilities and was accompanied by the complete reinstallation of the museum’s renowned collections in state-of-the-art galleries. The Norton is also recognized for advancing the practice and appreciation of emerging and under-recognized artists. In 2011, the Norton launched RAW (Recognition of Art by Women). Since its inception, the series has presented the work of Jenny Saville, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Phyllida Barlow, Klara Kristalova, Nina Chanel Abney, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Svenja Deininger, and María Berrío. In January 2019, the Museum launched an artist-in-residence program, which hosts four artists annually who are in residence on-site in restored homes that border the Museum’s campus. Artists who have participated in the residency program include María Berrío and Jessica Ingram. The expansion of the Norton also provided new and enhanced facilities for its educational programs, special exhibitions, lectures, tours, and other activities that serve the Museum’s diverse audiences. It transformed the Norton’s 6.3-acre campus into a “museum in a garden” which celebrates the beautiful year-round weather in West Palm Beach and features new, verdant public spaces and a 37,000-square-foot sculpture garden.