The Cultural Council for Palm Beach County has named Palm Beach County fiber and mixed media artist Amy Gross as the 2026 recipient of its Distinguished Woman Artist’s Prize. The council presented Gross with the unrestricted $10,000 award last week during the opening reception of its Sun, Sand, Surf exhibition in the William R. and Joyce A. Kruger Family Gallery, in front of more than 200 guests.
The prize was established in 2025 by Suzi K. Edwards through the Henry L. Kimelman Foundation. It is meant to support established women artists who have a record of high-quality work and are at a turning point in their careers. Nominees must be 40 or older, identify as female and have lived in Palm Beach County for more than three years. A regional panel nominated candidates, and a national and international selection committee scored them.
Gross makes embroidered and beaded fiber sculptures that blend the natural world with her inner life. The council described her pieces as clustering, tangling and multiplying to adapt to the spaces where they are installed, even though they are plainly the product of human design.
Gross holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The Cooper Union in New York City. She received a South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship in 2006 and the council’s Artist Innovation Fellowship in 2020. She has also completed residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine and the Arrowmont Pentaculum Residency in Tennessee.
Lawrence, the council’s president and CEO, said the prize recognizes Gross’s distinctive voice and her place in the county’s arts scene. Gross thanked the council for supporting her work from her earliest days as an artist.
The council is based in the Robert M. Montgomery, Jr. building in downtown Lake Worth Beach. More information on its artist grants is available at palmbeachculture.com.
