I am delighted to report that Mark Feeney, resident art, photo, and culture critic at the Boston Globe, has won the Pultizer Prize in Criticism! I just learned about the great news. Congratulations Mark! You so richly deserve it!

I am also honored to report that one of the 10 stories with which Mark was nominated and won was his review for the PRC exhibition Picture Show. You can read all of Mark Feeney’s nominated, prize-winning stories here.

This series of 10 reviews includes his musings on the photographic efforts of several PRC friends, including Kim Sichel’s aerial photography show, Arlette Kayafas’s Charles Teenie Harris show, and Abe Morell’s Mead Art Museum show. Being that we are a smaller non-profit in a largish city, I am thrilled and humbled that Mark has written about our shows so often, or even at all. You can read 5 of Mark’s reviews of PRC exhibitions here.

I so very much appreciate the time that Mark spends in understanding an exhibition and I know the artists do too. He always asks for all of the wall text and artist statements. I have long admired Mark for his insightful commentary and ability to create brilliant turns of phrases. In his writing, you can tell how much he enjoys pondering ideas of all stripes.

ize="2">Here are some excerpts below from the Boston Globe story and above, a photo by another of our favorite Globe staffers, Dominic Chavez.

From the Boston Globe, Globe writer wins Pulitzer for Criticism
By Don Aucoin, Globe Staff, April 7, 2008

Mark Feeney, an arts writer and photography reviewer for The Boston Globe, today was awarded the 2008 Pultizer Prize for criticism.

It is the 20th time the Globe has won the Pulitzer, which is considered the most prestigious award in journalism, and the second time in the past seven years that the newspaper has won the award for criticism.

Feeney, 50, won for 10 essays on visual culture that ranged from photography to painting and film. A self-described Globe “lifer” who began working at the newspaper shortly after he graduated from Harvard in 1979, Feeney noted today that the Globe has long made arts criticism a cornerstone of its identity.

“More than anything else, it’s about the paper,” he said of the Pulitzer. “There are so many people who are deserving who don’t get it. It’s a crapshoot. I’m just amazed, overwhelmed, and really, really pleased that the dice came up for me this time. But it’s not just for me. It’s for the paper.” The awards were announced this afternoon at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. …

Feeney won the Pulitzer for 10 critical essays that suggest the fluency and brio of his writing style, and the range of interests on which he brings that style to bear. …

“The Globe has a great tradition of reviewers, not just such prior Pulitzer winners as Robert Campbell and Gail Caldwell, but so many others, going all the way back to Michael Steinberg, Robert Taylor, Richard Dyer, Margaret Manning, and several current colleagues whom I will not embarrass by naming,” said Feeney.

Feeney was born in Winchester, Mass., and raised in Reading, Mass. His mother,
Agnes, who still lives in Reading, will turn 90 on Saturday.  “I’ve been at a loss as to what to get her for a present,” Feeney said. “I guess I’m all set now.”

No, the PRC is not planning a full-blown existential dilemma (well, not all of us anyway). But we are thrilled to host a lecture by the person who helped define contemporary photography during its rise to super-stardom in those quirky postmodern years. This Thursday night (Thursday, March 20, 7 p.m.) Andy Grundberg-critic, writer, curator, educator-will deliver the second presentation in the Photographic Resource Center’s Spring Lecture Series. The talk is titled “Collecting Photographs, Collecting the World” and will address the notion of collecting as a theme in contemporary photography, along with other prevalent trends in the art world. The image above (Cindy Sherman, Untitled #21, 1985) was used on the front jacket cover of Grundberg’s book Crisis of the Real.

Click here for more information on Mr. Grundberg and his upcoming lecture.