Cheryl Finley Wins High Museum’s David C. Driskell Prize
Cheryl Finley, the director of visual arts and culture at Spelman College and the leader of the Atlanta University Center Art History + Curatorial Studies Collective, has been named the 2026 recipient of the David C. Driskell Prize. The award, established by Atlanta’s High Museum of Art in 2005, carries a $50,000 honorarium and recognizes figures whose work has shaped African American art and art history.
Finley has led the Atlanta University Center Art History + Curatorial Studies Collective since 2019, helping build a program for Black arts professionals, scholars, and curators connected to historically Black colleges and universities. Her work has also extended into convening and publishing. Since 2013, she has co-organized “Black Portraiture[s],” an academic gathering centered on African diasporic art and culture. She is the author of Committed to Memory: The Art of the Slave Ship Icon and a co-author of My Soul Has Grown Deep: Black Art from the American South.
The Driskell Prize has become one of the most closely watched honors in the field, with past recipients including Alison Saar, Naomi Beckwith, Amy Sherald, Mark Bradford, and Rashid Johnson. In a statement, High Museum director Rand Suffolk described Finley as working “at the intersection of scholarship and institutional change,” and said her influence has helped support the next generation of visual arts leaders across Atlanta’s HBCU landscape and beyond.
Finley said the award carries particular meaning because David C. Driskell was both a mentor and a friend. She also pointed to the current pressures facing arts and education funding, saying the prize underscores the importance of innovative teaching, collaborative work, and academic excellence at HBCUs and beyond. In that sense, the honor recognizes not only a career of scholarship, but a model for how Black art history is being taught, organized, and expanded for the future.
