MIAMI.- The Cintas Foundation is pleased to announce the competition for the Cintas Foundation Emilio Sanchez Award in the Visual Arts opens November 15, 2007. Applications accepted through January 14, 2008.

The Cintas Foundation invites applications in the visual arts including painting, sculpture, installation art, design, video art, photography and filmmaking. The fellowship is awarded annually in the amount of $15,000 and is generously funded by the Emilio Sanchez Foundation. Eligibility is limited to artists of Cuban citizenship or direct descent (having a Cuban parent or grandparent) living outside of Cuba. The fellowship is not awarded to artists currently pursuing academic studies. The fellowship is not awarded for academic writing, study, or research or to performing artists. The Cintas fellow is free to pursue their artistic activities as they wish according to their application, in the United States or in other countries approved by the Cintas Foundation.

Since 1963, Cintas Fellowships have honored over 300 artists. Past visual arts fellows include Carlos Alfonzo, Teresita Fernández, Anthony Goicolea, photographers Andres Serrano and María Martínez-Cañas, sculptor Maria Elena González, filmmaker Mari Rodríquez-Ichaso, among others.

The Cintas Foundation was established with funds from the estate of Oscar B. Cintas (1887-1957), former Cuban ambassador to the United States and a prominent industrialist and patron of the arts. Cintas Fellowships encourage creative development in architecture, literature, music composition, and the visual arts. The Cintas Fellowships program is administered by the Cintas Foundation Board and by the Cintas Fellowship Program of the Frost Art Museum of Florida International University.

The application deadline for the Cintas Foundation Emilio Sanchez Award in the Visual Arts is January 14, 2008. For more information and application forms, please visit the website www.cintasfoundation.org or contact: Ingrid LaFleur Rogers, Cintas Fellows Collection Manager, at ingrid.rogers@fiu.edu.