About the Prize

To encourage the practice of art criticism and to broaden its reach to a wider public, the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prizes present potential writers with the opportunity to contribute articles on art and culture to a local journal, a national newspaper, and an international art magazine.

In response to the diverse entries received from the AAG x KLFI Essay Writing Prize in 2018, the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prizes now have English and Filipino categories. A panel of jurors will shortlist a maximum of six (6) writers from each category. From these lists, winners will be selected by the editors of the partner publications.

Two winners will be selected from the English category. The winner of the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prize for The Philippine Star will be awarded a regular column under ‘Platforms’ in the Arts and Culture section of the paper, to be published once a month with a total of 12 articles for a year. The winner of the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prize for ArtAsiaPacific will be contributing to this bi-monthly publication, with a total of six (6) articles for a year.

The Ateneo Art Gallery and the Kalaw-Ledesma Foundation Inc. welcomed a new publication partner: the Katipunan Journal. One winner selected from the Filipino category will be awarded the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prize for Katipunan Journal and will be contributing to this bi-annual research publication, with a total of two (2) articles for a year. In addition, the winning writer in the Filipino category will have his/her essay published in The Philippine Star.

In addition to the opportunity to have their written work published, one of the winners will be selected and offered a month-long writer’s residency at Orange Project in Bacolod. The residency will give the winning writer an opportunity to immerse and interact with local art communities in the Visayas.

The Ateneo Art Awards-Purita Kalaw-Ledesma (PKL) Prizes for Art Criticism was launched in 2014 by Ateneo Art Gallery and Kalaw-Ledesma Foundation, Inc. (KLFI). It was named in honor of Purita Kalaw-Ledesma, art patron and founder of the Art Association of the Philippines (AAP). Purita believed in art criticism’s “vital role in the development of culture,” citing its capacity to “guide both artists towards new directions and public taste towards the best in past and current artistic output.”

For any inquiries, please email Estela Bagos, AAG Museum Education Officer at pkl.aag@ateneo.edu or Clavel Sagao, KLFI Administrative Assistant at klfi_pklcenter@yahoo.com.