THE FOUNDATION

ABOUT THE DOROTHEA AND LEO RABKIN FOUNDATION

The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation is known for administering the Rabkin Prize for excellence in arts writing, given to a select group of arts journalists in the U.S. each year via a nomination process. We recognize the contributions of writers on art to the cultural life of our nation and communities, writers who are too seldom acknowledged and often under paid. The intellectual and creative contributions of visual arts journalists help us think together in public, shape cultural discourses, create original field research for art history, and bear witness to the value of what artists do.

The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation is an artist-endowed foundation with headquarters in Portland, Maine, that is home to an exhibition space where we study, preserve and showcase the work of Leo Rabkin (1919-2015). Leo Rabkin was known for color-saturated watercolors and innovative box constructions in plastic, wood and found materials. We are always pleased to share Leo Rabkin’s work and archives with the public and researchers.

The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation was created in 1999 and received a significant bequest from the estate of Leo Rabkin, including most of the artistic works he created during his lifetime. While the foundation’s primary giving activities are related to the Rabkin Prize, we also provide support for art and writing programs and projects on a discretionary basis. We are interested in supporting writing that explores the work of underrepresented artists, including makers of folk, visionary, outsider and self-taught art, since Dorothea and Leo Rabkin greatly admired and collected this kind of material.