NEW YORK.-Jennifer McSweeney, Director of the Penny McCall Foundation (PMF), today announced the names of the six finalists for the first Ordway Prize, one of the most generous international art prizes awarded in the United States. Given biennially, the prize will recognize two recipients, a mid-career artist and arts writer and/or curator, each of whom will receive an unrestricted monetary award of $100,000. The four remaining finalists will each receive awards of $7,500. The first two recipients will be announced on December 16, 2005, at a special event in New York City.

The Ordway Prize recognizes mid-career artists and arts writers and/or curators who have made important contributions to the field of contemporary art and letters. Recipients must be at least forty years of age and have created a significant body of work over a minimum of fifteen years. Nominees are considered from around the world.

The short list for the 2005 Ordway Prize comprises three artists and three arts writers and/or curators selected from seven nominees in each category. The nominators, who were invited by Ms. McSweeney to participate in the selection process, are a distinguished group of artists, curators, writers, museum professionals, scholars, philanthropists, and leaders in the field of contemporary art.

The finalists for the 2005 Ordway Prize in the art category are American artists Sam Durant and Senga Nengudi, and Colombian artist Doris Salcedo. The finalists in the arts writer and/or curator category are Lynne Cooke, curator, Dia Art Foundation; David Rimanelli, freelance art writer and critic; and Ralph Rugoff, director, California College of the Arts’ Wattis Institute of Contemporary Arts—all of whom are American.

The Ordway Prize is named in honor of Ms. McSweeney’s great-great aunt, Katharine Ordway, who was an exemplary philanthropist, avid art collector, and lifelong naturalist. Ms. Ordway, who bequeathed her entire 149-piece collection of twentieth-century art to the Yale University Art Gallery, died in June 1979.

Ms. McSweeney said, “The Ordway Prize is intentionally exceptional in terms of its international scope and in the amount of money it awards, which is intended to have a real impact on the lives and creative output of the recipients. The Prize is also designed to honor the quiet grace of Katharine Ordway, a creative philanthropist who believed that with privilege comes responsibility to humankind and to the Earth. She was an inspiration not only to my family, but to the generations of philanthropists who have come after her.”

The next Ordway Prizes will be awarded in 2007. As with the 2005 prize, potential award-winners for 2007 will be selected by nomination only, a process that will be overseen by a panel to be named by Ms. McSweeney.