Monika Sprüth Takes the 2022 Art Cologne Prize

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Art dealer Monika Sprüth, of Sprüth Magers gallery, has won this year’s ART COLOGNE Prize. The award is an acknowledgment of decades of work in Germany and around the world raising the profile of contemporary art, and particularly the importance of women in art.

Born in Memmingen, Bavaria in 1949, Sprüth grew up in Cologne but spent part of her schooling in the USA and France. After studying architecture, she worked as a city planner and a teacher before being drawn to the art world and founding her Cologne gallery in 1983.

A lover of football — supporting FC Köln and Viktoria Köln — Sprüth draws comparisons between the sport and the art world, particularly the importance of recognising talents and promoting them early. She put a lot of her success down recognising the artistic significance and potential of artists early in their careers.

Sprüth presented artists like Andreas Schulze, Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Rosemarie Trockel, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, and Cindy Sherman at important moments in their careers.

In a male-dominated industry she particularly brought the practices of exceptional female artists to the foreground both through exhibitions and interviews and articles in her own magazine, Eau de Cologne, published through the 1980s.

In the 1980s, Sprüth presented important conceptual works by George Condo, Walter Dahn, Alighiero Boetti, and John Baldessari.

Later, partnering with fellow Cologne dealer Philomene Magers under the banner of Sprüth Magers, the gallery welcomed more young female artists like Sylvie Fleury, while also presenting American minimalists like Dan Flavin, Donald Judd and Robert Morris.

Since then Sprüth Magers has shifted to Berlin and expanded to London, Los Angeles, and New York, with additional offices across Asia.

Other artists passing through the gallery’s doors in recent time include Bridget Riley, Gilbert & George, Thomas Demand, Anne Imhof, and Ed Ruscha.

Monika Sprüth will receive her award in a special ceremony at Cologne’s Historic Town Hall on 17 November.

Presented by the German association of galleries and art dealers, and ART COLOGNE organisers Koelnmesse, the €10,000 prize has been awarded annually in conjunction with the eponymous art fair since 1988.

Sprüth is the tenth female recipient of the prize, joining a roster of influential art dealers and art world movers that includes Ileana Sonnabend, Denise René, Annely Juda, Maria de Corral, Dina Vierny, Charlotte Zander, Ingvild Goetz, Bärbel Grässlin, Anny de Decker, and Rosemarie Schwarzwälder.

Other recipients include Swiss curator Harald Szeemann, former Director of the Tate Nicholas Serota, Art Cologne co-founder Rudolf Zwirner, influential German Art Historian Werner Spies, and Cologne Gallerist Michael Werner. —[O]

Main image: Monika Sprüth. Courtesy ART COLOGNE.