When painter Rebecca Kautz [MFA ’18 and Lecturer] learned she had won the 2024 Forward Art Prize, her first reaction was relief.

“The prize has been around for six years, and I’m pretty sure I’ve applied every single year,” said Kautz, a painter with a studio in Sun Prairie. She had been a finalist for the unrestricted $10,000 prize — given each year to two women artists in Dane County — in 2022 and 2023.

“I thought, ‘I just don’t know if I can keep doing it,’” Kautz said. “I was excited and relieved, and thrilled that the work had been recognized. It’s the biggest award I’ve ever received for my work.”

Madison-area artists Bird Ross and Brenda Baker started the Wisconsin Forward Fund in 2017 to support local women artists and highlight persistent inequity in the art world.

Despite progress, gender parity is a ways off. A 2024 Artnet Intelligence Report, released in May, noted that out of the 100 top-selling artists at auction in 2023, only 11 were women. According to a story in the New York Times, only 15% of exhibitions between 2008 and 2020 featured the work of all women, or mostly women. Artsy found that in 2023, “25% of inquiries on for-sale artworks were for works by women artists.”

The first Forward Art Prizes of $10,000 each were awarded to Dakota Mace [MFA ’19] and Jennifer Angus in 2019. Organizers say 65 artists applied this cycle, down from 82 in 2023.

This year’s winners, Kautz and Ann Orlowski, were honored at a reception Saturday night at the Willy Street Co-op’s community space Aubergine, where work from Forward Art Prize entrants will be on display through Dec. 2.

Before the awards were announced, the 2023 winners, Mary Bero and Babette Wainwright, shared with a tightly packed crowd how the funds had changed their own work the previous year.

“Artists like me who work in isolation incubate their creation like a pregnancy,” said Babette Wainwright, a Haitian-born sculptor. She used her prize money to get two pieces cast in bronze, frame a few drawings and update her website. “We carry it very privately within ourselves until we are ready to bring it to the light.

“My intimate approach to art appeases my own demons and suits my soul,” she said. “I don’t seek approval, but when my work gets noticed, as it did with such a prize, it’s a ray of sunshine. It elevates my work to the light so others can see it and appreciate it.

“It feels like a standing ovation, but one that’s accompanied by a big check.”