2017 Scholastic Art Awards

April 12, 2017

“Fragmented,” Lauren Lokre’s ’17 submission to the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards won Gold Key as well as a National Medal.

Twenty-six Cate students were recognized for their artistic talent in the 2017 Scholastic Art Awards, the oldest and most prestigious art competition in the United States. Organized by the nonprofit the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, the awards honor the nation’s most promising young artists in grades 7 through 12.

Art Department Chair Patrick Collins says, “I was truly impressed to find that Cate had both substantially broader participation than our peer schools… and that we had a remarkable number of students recognized with single and often multiple awards.”

“Swim” by Shelagh Morphy ’18 received an honorable mention.

The following list of students collectively took home 57 awards: Rovenna Armi ’19, Christopher Bennett ’18, Kate Bradley ’19, Emily Burns ’18, Tessa Denison ’19, Sophie Eskenazi ’18, Darling Garcia ’18, Kevin Ha ’17, Eva Herman ’17, Sophie Johnson ’18, Kaiser Ke ’19, Jenny Lee ’17, Tommy Liu ’17, Lauren Lokre ’17, Parker Matthews ’18, Julia McCaw ’18, Ruby McCullers ’18, Angie Meneses ’17, Shelagh Morphy ’18, Maisie Oswald ’18, Grace Sahani ’17, Charles Shi ’18, Serena Soh ’17, Isabel Sorenson ’18, Laura Vences ’18, and Emily Zhang ’19.

The competition is judged by leaders in the fields of literary and visual arts. Former jurors such as Robert Frost, Judy Blume, Paul Giamatti, and David Sedaris are credited with identifying early promise in some of history’s and today’s most prominent artists and writers.  Alumni include Andy Warhol, Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote, Lena Dunham, Robert Redford, and Ken Burns. Last year, there were a record 320,000 entries in the competition’s 28 categories, which range from architecture to jewelry, from video games to poetry.

Collins adds that entry to competitions like this fall outside the curriculum of art courses at Cate. “This combination of initiative, breadth of participation, and level of accomplishment is really gratifying for our students and for the teachers who work with them.”