The CAP Show – An Exhibition Celebrating Cleveland Arts Prize Winners

In Cleveland, the highest recognition that an artist can receive is the Cleveland Arts Prize in Visual Arts.  The Prize has been awarded for 65 years, since 1961. The Prize is awarded in other disciplines too –  Music, Design, Literature, Dance – and other people are recognized for their service to the arts in our region.  But it has always seemed to me that the awards in the visual arts are the most important.

Of course, this is just my prejudice because the visual arts in our region has been the critical focus of my life for the past 45 years.

For most years, one Prize  has been awarded in the visual arts.  And the Arts Prize means everything to the visual artist.  Most artists question whether what they do is of any importance; most artists worry whether the importance of their work will be recognized; most artists fear that their work will not be remembered.  Yes, this has a lot to do with ego, but that makes sense, because it takes a lot of ego  to be presumptuous enough to commit to make something that you believe may find a public and may endure through time.

There’s a lot of struggle and sacrifice to have this kind of ambition.  Rarely is there any economic gain.  The making is what is important.  But there’s those nags  –  Is there an audience?  Is anyone paying attention?

The Cleveland Arts Prize in the Visual Arts is our way of saying “Yes!”

At Bostwick Design Initiative Gallery, the Arts Prize organization tasked H. Scott Westover, Curator of Progressive Art Collection and Michael Weil, Director of Foothill Galleries to curate a show of past winners.  They selected 23 artists and assembled a collection of their works – some with one or two pieces, several with many more.

It is a lot of work to put together an exhibition of this scope, but having given the show the necessary effort, it would have been difficult for this show not to succeed  –  these artists are our best and they all wanted to be represented by best examples of their work.   The only possible complaint, really – you’d like to see much more.

In 1996, in partial honor of the celebration of the 200^th anniversary of the founding of Cleveland, the Cleveland Museum of Art presented a monumental exhibition and catalog,  Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796 – 1946.  With minor exception, the exhibition actually covered 1859 – 1946, just short of 90 years.  Simply, there was not much art here until the city started to stretch muscle as it grew to become an industrial giant.  Though the Arts Prize started in 1961, the first artists that were recognized reflected work that had been accomplished over previous years.  So, in a real sense, the Cleveland Arts Prizes encompasses the history of art here for the last 75 years  – an Act II to Transformations Act I.   The CAP Show is a suggestion of the breadth and depth of the art that has been ours during this lifetime. 

Singling out any few works does not really do justice –  the entire show is exemplary.  Anyway, I’ll mention a few.  A series of three, small, intense drawings by Laurence Channing were created especially for the show.  With the strength and punch of the larger works for which he is known, they are an elegant elegy to our gritty, lovely city.  Blazing across the back wall of the central gallery, a series of pulsing, vibrant graphics by Jullian Stanczak embrace luminously.  Similarly, a monumental textile by Janice Lesman-Moss, created on Kent State University’s digital Jacquard loom, is explosive with silver tendrils escaping an energetic vortex.  The complimentary placement of these two artists is typical of the balance and synergy the curators activated  with their installation.

Brent Kee Young’s open lampwork constructions shimmer in the half light of Kasumi’s twisting and interlacing projected videos.   Judith Salomon and William Brouillard are side by side as they once were – both teaching ceramics at the Cleveland Institute of Art.  Brouillard’s sort of steam-punk imagery wraps his weighty statements as Salomon’s vessels touch and tap and flower almost weightlessly.  Barry Underwood’s photography of natural landscapes humanize with the application of structures of light while Don Harvey’s constructive contexts find harmony in the natural world.

Back to the first room, entering or leaving, an expansive cityscape by Michaelangelo Lovelace is a funky utopian vision of a city alive and humming with energy.

Well done.

William Busta is a past winner of the Cleveland Arts Prize, and was on the Honorary Committee for The CAP Show. He was not involved in organizing or curation. He was curator, along with Susan Channing and Alenka Banco, of a2009 exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Cleveland Arts Prize.

The CAP Show – An Exhibition Celebrating Cleveland Arts Prize Winners
December 12, 2025 – January 31, 2026
Free

Symphonic Salon with Members of the Cleveland Orchestra
6 pm Friday, January 16
Tickets $75.

Closing Reception Noon – 3 pm Saturday, January 31.

Bostwick Design Art Initiative Gallery
2729 Prospect Avenue East
Ceveland, Ohio 44115