Tony Shore wins Sondheim Prize

Baltimore painter Tony Shore, a graduate of the Baltimore School for the Arts and the Maryland Institute College of Art, and the 2006 winner of the Bethesda Painting Awards, has won the $25,000 2007 Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize.

Shore is currently on the faculty of the Foundations Department at the Maryland Institute College of Art and is the founding Director of Access Art, a youth art center in Baltimore's Morrell Park neighborhood. He is represented in Baltimore by the C. Grimaldis Gallery and (as far as I know) unrepresented in the DC area region.

Shore was somewhat of a surprise winner of the 2006 Bethesda Painting Awards. He paints large works on black velvet, which have been described as straddling "the fence between high-class and lowbrow."

You can see the exhibition of works by the winner and all other finalists here.

Congratulations to Tony Shore!