The American Numismatic Society (ANS) is pleased to announce that Mashiko Nakashima is the recipient of the Society’s prestigious 2019 J. Sanford Saltus Award for Signal Achievement in the Art of the Medal.
Mashiko grew up in her father’s home city of Kyoto, Japan. In 1962 she moved to the United States, and in 1964 to New York City. There, in 1993, she founded Medialia … Rack and Hamper Gallery, a showplace for contemporary medallic art. Seven years later she founded New Approach, Inc., a nonprofit organization that promotes emerging artists and curators and serves as a contemporary medallic-art research center.
As a prolific sculptor and medallic artist, Ms. Nakashima has received numerous awards, including the American Numismatic Association’s (ANA) Excellence in Medallic Sculpture Award and the Grand Prix at the XXXV Fédération Internationale de la Médaille d’Art (FIDEM) Congress. Her stone sculptures, medallic art, silkscreen prints, and drawn illustrations are in numerous public collections around the world, including the Cincinnati Art Museum, the National Museum of Taiwan, Kyoto City Hall, the Queens Museum (New York), the American Numismatic Society, the American Numismatic Association, and the British Museum. Her many commissions, from organizations such as the British Art Medal Society and the New York Numismatic Club, include one for a memorial granite headstone for the feminist activist and author Betty Friedan. She has also been invited to submit designs to the United States Mint.
In addition to her extensive creative endeavors, she has also been a tireless teacher of her craft, offering courses in medallic and stone sculpture at The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, for two decades (1993 – 2013). Since 2001 she has also conducted private book-art, medal, and urushi workshops.
“Mashiko is unquestionably deserving of the Award,” noted Saltus Committee Chairman Donald Scarinci, “not only for her wonderfully creative medallic art, but for all that she has done to teach and promote the medal as well. We are especially pleased to present the Award to her this year, the centennial year of the Award.”
The ceremony will take place at the ANS headquarters in New York City on Thursday, December 12, 2019, at 6 P.M. The Saltus Medal will be presented to Ms. Nakashima by ANS Executive Director Dr. Gilles Bransbourg.
The award was created with a grant to the American Numismatic Society by J. Sanford Saltus in 1913 to recognize and encourage excellence in the art of the medal. The first Saltus Award was presented in 1919; the silver award medal was designed by the prominent German-born numismatic and architectural sculptor Adolph Alexander Weinman.
Mashiko Nakashima joins the ranks of other significant artists who have been awarded the medal including, among dozens of others, James Earl Frazer (1919), Victor D. Brenner (1922), Paul Manship (1925), Lee Lawrie (1937), Donald DeLue (1967), Kauko Räsänen (1986), Gustaaf Hellegers (2001), João Duarte (2011), and Bogomil Nikolov (2017).
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About the ANS
The American Numismatic Society (ANS), organized in 1858 and incorporated in 1865 in New York State, operates as a research museum under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and is recognized as a publicly supported organization under section 170(b)(1)(A)(vi) as confirmed on November 1, 1970.
