United States Artists, a Chicago-based nonprofit, has named 50 artists as recipients of its 2026 USA Fellowship and awarded the Berresford Prize to Lori Lea Pourier. Each fellowship comes with an unrestricted $50,000 grant, marking the 20th anniversary of the organization founded in 2006. The 2026 cohort spans nine disciplines, including visual art, media, and writing, with notable fellows such as Mendi + Keith Obadike, Nancy Baker Cahill, Edra Soto, Eric-Paul Riege, Macon Reed, Maia Chao, and Johanna Hedva. The Berresford Prize honors Pourier for her decades of advocacy for Native artists and her role in founding the First Peoples Fund.
This announcement matters because United States Artists is one of the few US organizations providing direct, unrestricted support to artists across all disciplines, a model that artists like Edra Soto emphasize as vital for financial stability and creative risk-taking. The fellowships highlight the ongoing need for non-commercial funding in the arts, especially during a politically challenging moment in American history. The recognition of Native artist advocate Lori Lea Pourier also underscores the importance of supporting marginalized artist communities and the long-term impact of philanthropic investment in the arts.