AXA Art Insurance, the world's premier art insurance specialist, announced today that celebrated artist Elizabeth Murray has selected Suzanne McClelland as the recipient of the 2006 AXA Artist Award. Ms. McClelland was presented the award, which comes with a $25,000 grant, at the 2006 International Collector's Dinner in celebration of Art Basel Miami Beach which was held at Casa Casuarina this evening.

In making the selection Ms. Murray made the following statement, “Suzanne McClelland has been one of my favorite younger artists for many years. She is creative and inventive and, most of all, she takes chances. She is not satisfied with easy solutions. I can't think of anyone more deserving of this award. I am honored that AXA Art has asked me to select an artist for their 2006 Artist Award. This is the only program I know of that works so directly from artist to artist. Selecting Suzanne has been a very personal experience and the result is a most generous model for contemporary art patronage".

Suzanne McClelland was born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1959. She received her BFA from the University of Michigan (1981) and her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York (1989). McClelland is both print maker and painter. She is known for her integration of words and even dialogues into her paintings, collages and prints. Whether rendered with wiry calligraphy or distorted oversized letters, her choice of words may explore content as diverse as human relationships, sexuality, feminism and power. As writer Cathy Lebowitz noted in 2001, “McClelland uses unorthodox approaches to language to create a physical and emotional experience."

Elizabeth Murray was born in Chicago in 1940 and received her M.F.A. from Mills College in Oakland, California. She moved to New York in 1967. In the mid-1970s she began combining sculpture and painting to produce large, irregularly shaped works that seem to explode from the walls on which they are mounted. Ms. Murray received the Skowhegan Medal in Painting in 1986, the Larry Aldrich Prize in Contemporary Art in 1993, and a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award in 1999. In 2006, the Museum of Modern Art in New York mounted a major retrospective of her work from 1963 to 2005.

In accepting the 2006 AXA Artist award, Susan McClelland commented, “Elizabeth Murray has a vision that is inclusive and decisive. From her example, I have learned how to live as an artist and how to stay alive visually". In acknowledging AXA Art's role as patron of the award and prize, Ms. McClelland further commented, “Artists can make work, but they need courageous patronage to help sustain and nurture their careers. AXA Art has not only found a way to be creative in business, but is also extremely generous toward the creative work of artists", she concluded.

Over the years, AXA Art has been actively involved in sustainable cultural philanthropic activities in support of the international art community. Since 1999 the company has initiated three groundbreaking on-going conservation grants dealing with the ageing and preservation of new materials utilized by artists since the first quarter of the 20th century. In 2000 AXA Art initiated a commission-based award for emerging and under-recognized artists. Beginning this year and going forward, AXA Art will select a distinguished artist to identify an artist recipient for the AXA Artist Award recognition and the grant.

“What an honor to have had the participation of Elizabeth Murray", remarked Christiane Fischer, CEO of AXA Art US. “Our new model of selecting AXA Artist Award recipients gives us opportunity to secure the expertise of outstanding living artists while nurturing the creativity of emerging talent", she added. “We look forward to the continuing development of Suzanne McClelland's prolific body of work", Fischer concluded.

The AXA Artist award is open to all aspects of visual arts. There are no restrictions in terms of age, gender, race, religion or nationality.

About AXA Art Insurance
AXA Art serves a wide range of clients, from first-time purchasers to the world's most respected collectors, as well as individual artists, museums, galleries, corporations and public exhibitions. AXA Art insures objects in every active area of serious collecting, that includes paintings, drawings and sculpture to rare stamps, antique furnishings and vintage vehicles. In the US, AXA Art maintains offices in New York (headquarters), Atlanta, Beverly Hills, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia and New England. The company's international presence is manifested by offices in Brussels, Cologne, London, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore and Zurich. For more information visit www.axa-art.com

For further information, please contact:

Rosalind (Roz) Joseph
Telephone: (718) 710-5181
E-mail: rjoseph@axa-art-usa.com