Susan Antinori’s path to funding Idea Capital’s Susan Antinori Visual Artist Award began with a neighbor and friend. Atlanta curator and arts advocate Mary Stanley sits on the Idea Capital Steering Committee. Through her, Antinori learned how the nonprofit funds Atlanta artists whose projects fall outside what traditional institutions will support.
“I’m confident that this award will continue to attract top-notch talent from the Atlanta artistic community,”
Arts philanthropist susan antinori
Stuart Keeler, Susan Todd-Raque, Pam Rogers, Louise Shaw and Cinqué Hicks launched Idea Capital in spring 2008, putting up $100 each to seed a pooled artist grant fund. The group’s first grant went to performance and conceptual artist Allison Rentz. That model — small donations from the arts community, redistributed directly to artists — has held for nearly two decades.
As Antinori learned more about the group’s work, a gap became glaring and would eventually shape the award that now carries her name.
“There were more performative and three-dimensional artists that were celebrated or supported,” Antinori said. “There was not enough, in my mind, of support for your classic painter … your two-dimensional artist.”
That observation became the Susan Antinori Visual Artist Award, which Antinori has backed since 2018. The annual $5,000 stipend goes to one metro Atlanta artist working in painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, or printmaking who brings an experimental edge to the form. The award’s first recipient was mixed-media artist Yanique Norman, who used the funds to create thirteen dresses made from Xerox-paper collage and oil paint, an exploration of race and history through the image of Sally Hemings as a “First Lady.”
The gap the Antinori Visual Artist Award fills
The Susan Antinori Visual Artist Award targets mid-career artists who’ve worked in metro Atlanta for at least five years.
“Mid-career is probably when it’s toughest … when you have enough of a portfolio to show, but that’s where you need … maybe a month off of whatever job is paying your utility bills in order to … finish up a work or a body of work,” Antinori said.
Art has been part of Antinori’s life since college. It was her major, and she continues to shoot, sculpt, paint and create when life allows. “It’s just my happy place,” she said. She and her husband, Ron Antinori, are longtime supporters of the Hambidge Center in Rabun Gap, where a gift from the Antinori Foundation funded the Antinori Pottery Studio and, later, the Antinori Village, a cluster of cabins and gathering spaces built for short residencies. Designed by Atlanta firm BLDGS, the village won a 2026 Design Honor Award of Architectural Distinction from AIA Georgia.
That same generosity now extends the Visual Artist Award through 2029. Antinori’s latest gift commits $15,000 to fund the $5,000 stipend for three more award cycles. “Idea Capital is the one organization I support where my gift goes directly into the hands of artists,” she said.
Idea Capital recently announced Atlanta artist Hail Holtzclaw as the 2026 recipient of the Susan Antinori Visual Artist Award. Holtzclaw, who works primarily in oil paint and charcoal, holds a BFA in Drawing, Painting, and Printmaking and a BA in Art History from Georgia State University and has been exhibited at The End Project Space, Swan Coach House Gallery, and the Marietta Cobb Museum of Art.
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“I’m confident that this award will continue to attract top-notch talent from the Atlanta artistic community,” Antinori said. “Idea Capital is unique in its mission to award innovation and recognize artists who breathe new life into traditional media.”
The application for the current Idea Capital award cycle, including the Antinori Visual Artist Award, opens Sept. 14, 2026.
