Today’s arts writers are facing a moment of profound precarity. 

As media shrinks and fractures, there are communities across the U.S. where no one is paying attention to what artists do, at least full time and in public. In this increasingly unsustainable environment, arts journalists are seldom acknowledged, often under paid and experience the downward pressure of the media industry in their lives. 

The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation is known for the Rabkin Prize, which recognizes the intellectual and creative labors of visual arts journalists and comes with an unrestricted award of $50,000. We believe arts writers are at the heart of our most essential conversations, help us think together in public, create the original field research for art history, and bear witness to the essential value of what artists do. 

The Rabkin Foundation is dedicated to inspiring the next generation of arts writers and collaborating with others to uncover more viable futures for the field. We do this through community building, thought leadership and the recognition of excellence.

The Rabkin Prize is the central initiative of the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, an artist-endowed foundation. The prize is awarded through a nomination process. When possible, we provide additional support for the arts writing field. We are interested in supporting writing that explores the work of underrepresented artists, including makers of what has historically been called folk, visionary, outsider and self-taught art, since Dorothea and Leo Rabkin greatly admired and collected this kind of material.

The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation is based in Portland, Maine and is home to a destination gallery space where all are welcome to explore the art and archives of Leo Rabkin (1919-2015), a school teacher, art collector and artist. Leo Rabkin was known especially for color-saturated watercolors and his inventive box constructions in plastic, wood and found materials. The 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.

Our Portland office is located in the heart of the arts district in Portland, Maine, near the Maine College of Art, the Portland Museum of Art, SPACE and other cultural institutions. It is also home to the Rabkin Library, a collection of books curated by arts writers for arts writers. We welcome visitors by appointment.