Lori Lea Pourier named United States Artists Berresford Prize winner
United States Artists has announced Lori Lea Pourier (Ogala Lakota) as the recipient of its annual Berresford Prize, which honors administrators, curators, scholars, and producers who create platforms and conditions for artists to thrive.
The award, which includes a $50,000 cash prize, is given to individuals shaping sustainable pathways for artists and cultural practitioners.
Pourier, the founder of the First Peoples Fund where she currently serves as senior fellow, is a long-standing arts leader who has made an enduring impact on the cultural preservation, advocacy, and artistic possibilities of Indigenous Arts ecologies across the nation. From her early career at the First Nations Development Institute and the International Indigenous Women’s Network, where she rose to the ranks of executive director, Pourier has created a legacy of supporting and advocating for the work of Native artists and arts communities for nearly 30 years.
“I am deeply honored to receive this award named in recognition of Susan Berresford. I first met Susan early in my career during her tenure at the Ford Foundation. As a young Native woman entering the Foundation’s offices for the first time, I could not have imagined the path that lay ahead. In 2006, while hosting Ford Foundation staff and grantees in the Black Hills of South Dakota, we witnessed the launch of United States Artists. Since then, many First Peoples Fund artists and culture bearers have gone on to be recognized by United States Artists—an enduring reflection of the vision and investment that began in those early years,” Pourier said in her remarks.
In 2024 Lori was elected to the Academy of Arts & Science. In 2023 International Guardians of Culture and Lifeways Lifetime Achievement Award for the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries and Museums. In 2022, she received the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, Sidney Yates Advocacy Award and the Kennedy Center Next 50 trailblazer leader.
Other recognitions include the 2017 Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow, a recipient of the 2013 Women’s World Summit Foundation Prize for Creativity in Rural Life, and a 2013 Louis T. Delgado Distinguished Grantmaker Awardee. As an alumni of the Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO) American Indian Ambassadors Leadership Program, she stands with more than 300 Indigenous leaders.
United States Artists supports artists and their essential role in society. Its nomination-based programs support artists and cultural practitioners of all disciplines and career stages across the country through unrestricted awards and services tailored to their needs.
Introduced in 2019, the Berresford Prize was named for USA’s co-founder Susan V. Berresford. Each year’s recipient of the Berresford Prize is selected through an internal artist-led nomination and review process.
