Awarded for the first time in 1996, the annual Medal Award of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (SMFA) is a prize rewarding exceptional artists and important art supporters for their involvement and influence in the art world. This year, the SMFA will award contemporary artist Glenn Ligon during a ceremony scheduled for 20 May 2013.

The artist is known for his works using different media, namely painting, neon lights, installations, videos and printing that explore the topics of sexuality, depiction, race or language. He uses suggestive texts, quotations issued from culturally and historically important publications of artists such as James Baldwin, Jean Genet and Zora Neale Hurston. Through his work, Ligon explores the cultural heritage of America and replaces it with the context of contemporary life.

Born in 1960 in Bronx, Glenn Ligon currently lives and works in New York. He graduated from the Wesleyan University in 1982. He had solo shows, namely at the Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington (1993), at the Brooklyn Museum of Art (1996), at the St. Louis Art Museum (2000), at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2001), at the Dia Center for the Arts in New York (2003) and at the Power Plant in Toronto (2005). He has also exhibited internationally on the occasion of big group events.