The Anonymous Was A Woman Award is given to women artists who are over 40 years of age, in part as a way of countering sexism in the art world. It was initiated in 1996 in direct response to the National Endowment for the Arts' decision to stop funding individual artists.
The award comes with a grant of $25,000 and is designed to enable exceptional woman artists to further develop their work. Awardees are chosen on the basis of their past accomplishments, their originality and artistic growth, and the quality of their work. Since 1996, some 210 women have received the award.
The award was founded by a New York artist who has chosen to remain anonymous. She named the award in reference to a line from Virginia Woolf’s book A Room of One’s Own and in recognition of all the women artists through the ages who have remained anonymous for various reasons. Nominators, who include art writers, curators, art historians, and previous winners, are likewise unnamed.