The Smithsonian American Art Museum has awarded the 2025 Charles C. Eldredge Prize to Faye Raquel Gleisser, author of Risk Work: Making Art and Guerilla Tactics in Punitive America (Chicago 2023).

The Eldredge Prize was established in 1986 by the American Art Forum and is awarded annually to the author of a recent book-length publication that enriches our understanding of the art history of the United States.

In their decision, the jury describes Risk Work as a “gamechanger” that “draws together art history, performance studies, black feminism, queer of color critique, legal studies, and carceral studies, to show how guerrilla art between 1967 and 1987 requires attention to punitive literacy.” The University of Chicago Press is honored to have published Risk Work.

Gleisser and the Eldredge Prize were celebrated at the 2026 meeting of the College Art Association. The award announcement was published in American Art, the journal of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Please join us in congratulating Faye Raquel Gleisser. You can find more information on the Eldredge Prize and a list of past winners here.