The SECA Art Award (Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art Award) has been given by SFMOMA since 1967. The award has honored almost 100 Bay Area artists with an exhibition at SFMOMA and an accompanying publication.
1967 — Mel Henderson
1968 — Peter Zecher
1969 — William Allan
1970 — James Reineking
1971 — Wayne E. Campbell
1973 — David Kimball Anderson — Special Recognition: David Jones, Jim Pomeroy
1974 — Charles R. Garoian, Jerome Johnson, David Jones, Bryan Rogers, Mary Snowden
1975 — Ciel Bergman (aka Cheryl Bowers), Lucian Octavius Pompili, Cornelia Schulz
1976 — David Maclay
1977 — David Best, Michael Jean Cooper, Glenn Jampol, Miklós Pogány
1978 — Milton Komisar
1980 — Squeak Carnwath, Suzanne Hanson, Seth Seiderman
1981 — Marc Katano, George Lawson, Margaret Rinkovsky
1983 — Clay Jensen
1984 — Larry Thomas
1985 — Richard Overstreet, Rick Soss
1986 — Ev Thomas
1987 — Anna Valentina Murch
1988 — Susan Marie Dopp
1990 — Nayland Blake, John Meyer
1992 — John Beech, Hung Liu, Maria Porges
1994 — Toi Hoang
1996 — D-L Alvarez, Anne Appleby, Barry McGee
1998 — Chris Finley, Gay Outlaw, Laurie Reid, Rigo 98 (now Rigo 23)
2000 — Rachael Neubauer, Kathryn VanDyke
2002 — John Bankston, Andrea Higgins, Chris Johanson, Will Rogan
2004 — Rosana Castrillo Díaz, Simon Evans, Shaun O’Dell, Josephine Taylor
2006 — Sarah Cain, KotaEzawa, Amy Franceschini, Mitzi Pederson, Leslie Shows
2008 — Tauba Auerbach, Desirée Holman, Jordan Kantor, Trevor Paglen
2010 — Mauricio Ancalmo, Colter Jacobsen, Ruth Laskey, Kamau Amu Patton
2012 — Zarouhie Abdalian, Josh Faught, Jonn Herschend, David Wilson
2017 — Liam Everett, Alicia McCarthy, Sean McFarland, K.r.m. Mooney, Lindsey White
2019 — Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Sahar Khoury, Marlon Mullen
2022 — Binta Ayofemi, Maria A. Guzmán Capron, Cathy Lu, Marcel Pardo Ariza, Gregory Rick
2024 — Rose D’Amato, Angela Hennessy, Rupy C. Tut
2026 — CrossLypka, Em Kettner, Chanell Stone
An analysis
94 individuals named above, 1967–2026.
~22 moved away (NY, LA, Portland, overseas, etc.), 11 are deceased.
| Gender | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Men | 52 | 55% |
| Women | 37 | 39% |
| Nonbinary | 4 | 4% |
| Unknown | 1 | 1% |
The split has shifted substantially over time. The award’s first 20 years (1967–1986) were nearly all men; women reach rough parity by the 2000s, and the 2020s cohort is the first majority-women decade.
| Decade | Men | Women | Nonbinary | Unknown | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1960s | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| 1970s | 15 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 18 |
| 1980s | 7 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 13 |
| 1990s | 7 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 13 |
| 2000s | 8 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 19 |
| 2010s | 9 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 16 |
| 2020s | 3 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 12 |
Count of artists whose practice touches each medium (most work across more than one, so counts sum to more than 94). Painting and sculpture dominate across all six decades; installation, drawing, and photography form a strong second tier.
| Medium | Artists |
|---|---|
| Painting | 37 |
| Sculpture | 33 |
| Installation | 16 |
| Drawing | 15 |
| Photography | 10 |
| Video | 9 |
| Printmaking | 8 |
| Performance | 7 |
| Ceramics | 7 |
| Film | 6 |
| Mixed media | 6 |
| Textile/fiber | 5 |
| Mural/public art | 4 |
| Sound | 3 |
| Conceptual | 2 |
| Design/research | 1 |