Past Award Recipients

“Receiving the Marfield was an enormous honor. The fact that the prize rewards quality of writing distinguishes it among other journalism prizes. I was so thrilled to receive this recognition and to celebrate with the members of the committee and the Arts Club. It means so much to me and to my work.”

“The Marfield Prize was a wonderful boost in all sorts of ways. It gave me the sense that real readers out there appreciated my book (and it was a delight to meet some of them in person when I came to Washington). It made my publishers view me as a prize-winning writer, well worth backing on future books. And it brought me the extremely useful sum of $10,000, which has basically paid this year’s research costs on my next book. So many thanks, all round!”

“Winning the Marfield Prize in 2017 couldn’t have come at a better time for me. I met a vast number of interesting and culturally engaged members of the Arts Club of Washington during the prize reception. I’ve kept in touch with many of them and some of those relationships have resulted in other events and collaborations. I couldn’t be happier with how things turned out and am reminded of that every time I see my book with the Marfield name printed at the top of the jacket!”

“I was surprised and delighted to win the Marfield Prize in 2015. The $10,000 check has been put to good use: It’s paid for transcription services for my next book, a follow-up to Razzle Dazzle. As any nonfiction writer can you tell, the cost of transcribing hours of interviews with (in my case) over a 100 sources is not cheap. Ten thousand dollars comes in handy. I am grateful to the Marfield Prize for bringing attention to arts writing, from visual arts to performing arts, biography to criticism. It’s not easy getting books on the arts published. But the Marfield Prize adds prestige and publicity to the endeavor and I know that my publisher, Simon and Schuster, is pleased to have a Marfield alum in its stable of writers.”

“It is a prestigious honor that I cite in the first paragraph of my Wikipedia biography, for example, as a substantial acknowledgment of my achievement in the field. The monetary prize has been helpful in my current project, which is a biography of Richard Avedon (on the Harper imprint at HarperCollins); I am using the funds slowly to pay for the several hundred transcriptions of interviews I have conducted as research for the biography. Money well spent. I thank the Washington Arts Club again for the great honor.”

“I have such wonderful memories of my visit there and of all the people I met…. the wonderful news that my book about the Chelsea had been awarded the Marfield Prize, with the unusually large monetary grant attached, stirred up memories of all I’d learned about other writers’ and artists’ attempts to create as much financial freedom as possible for themselves in order to have more time for creative work. I was determined to put these lessons to the best possible use—to invest the $10,000 in a way that would reduce my living expenses as much as possible, for as long as possible, so that I might enjoy opportunities to experiment more, to try new avenues of research, to read for long periods of time while new ideas formed, without having to leap headlong into a new publishing contract.”

“I felt an immediate impact from my Marfield Prize from my publisher, Knopf, which trumpeted the win on social media, and congratulated me. I sat next to the Austrian ambassador at the dinner in Washington, and met with journalists and cultural figures in Washington during my several day residency for the prize. It was a real thrill to stay in the historic mansion. From a morale standpoint, it was an amazing experience to win the prize. It was a huge emotional honor to receive the recognition. I first wrote about the Maria Altmann case in October 2001, and I finished writing the book 10 years later, in the fall of 2011. Books require a lot of research and time to come together. Getting the recognition of the Marfield Prize was one of the highlights of my life. When The Lady in Gold made The New York Times bestseller lists in 2015, I felt like the Marfield Prize had provided me with some of the support to give me the endurance to keep backing the book publicly in appearances and speeches, which is also an important part of the book process. I am very grateful to the Marfield Prize and the DC Arts Club for all of this.”

“The prize boosted my self-confidence greatly! In working on Lange, I think I had a nagging worry that art critics wouldn’t be interested in what I have to say, especially since I view photography as always produced in large part by its historical context. So the prize was deeply reassuring. I’ve since written another biography of a photographer, and approached it with more confidence because of the Marfield prize.”

“I was thrilled with the prize, particularly because the judges were so eminent. And naturally the money did not hurt since writers are always in need.”

“I have nothing but grateful and affectionate feelings for the Arts Club and the Marfield Prize!”

“I was so honoured to win the Marfield Prize in 2007. It certainly gave me huge confidence to carry on. I am truly grateful, and look forward to hearing about the thirteenth winner!”

“The monetary prize helped me take a semester off teaching and allowed me to write a young adult book, ‘Ain’t Nothing But a Man’ and to apply for grants. The grants in turn allowed me to write
’A Nation of Deadbeats’ for Knopf. The prize has opened a lot of doors in the literary world, which was new to me as a historian.”