June 3, 2025

NATCHITOCHES – Artist Edgar Cano was selected to receive two significant grants, a regional award and an international award, both created to recognize the talents of visual artists and enable them to devote more time and energy into creative endeavors.

Cano is assistant professor of art at Northwestern State University.  He was selected as a 2025 State Fellow for Visual Arts by South Arts for its 2025 State Fellows for Literary Arts and Visual Arts in its flagship Southern Prize and State Fellowships program. He was also selected to receive a 2025 Individual Support Grant from the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation of New York, which are awarded to artists worldwide.

In addition, Cano was named this year’s recipient of the Shawn and Linnye Daily Endowed Professorship at NSU, which funds faculty research, travel and professional development, as well as a faculty enhancement award from NSU’s College of Arts and Sciences, which provides funding for student and faculty research, travel and collaboration to bridge the liberal arts with several other disciplines.

The funds will allow him to participate in workshops in Iowa and in Veracruz, Mexico, along with activities related to personal learning and improvement as an art professor, he said.

Cano, a native of Mexico, has earned many awards in national and international competitions over the last two decades, and has shown work in solo and group exhibitions.

“These distinctions reinforce my dual role as a committed visual artist and educator devoted to excellence and lifelong learning,” Cano said.

Established in 2017, the Southern Prize and State Fellowships program was created to bring more visibility to the artistic talent to the Southeastern region of the U.S. The program was expanded in 2024 to support literary arts and annually awards a total of $80,000 to nine visual artists and nine literary artists from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Alongside the State Fellowship award, each selected artist has a chance to compete for the Southern Prize awards.

Cano is among the 18 State Fellows to be awarded unrestricted cash prizes of $5,000 each. This year’s fellowship class will now compete for the larger Southern Prize for Literary Arts and Visual Arts awards, which grant an additional $25,000 for the winner and the $10,000 for the finalist, as well as a residency at an artist retreat space. For additional information on the Southern Prize and State Fellowship programs, visit www.southarts.org.

The Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation has been making individual support grants since 1976 to painters, sculptors and printmakers who have been creating mature art for at least 20 years and who are in current financial need. These awards are distributed worldwide intended to recognize the talents of many individuals around the world who have dedicated long careers to making art.

Cano and each of the other 19 artists selected was awarded a cash grant of $25,000 this year. These individuals were selected from a group of 865 applications from 58 countries by a panel of five advisors who are themselves art professionals and who have no affiliation with the Gottlieb Foundation.  More information on the Gottlieb Foundation grant recipients is available at https://www.gottliebfoundation.org/2025-grant-recipients-1.

Cano works in many mediums, including colorful large scale works with mythical elements, fine details and ambiguous themes.  He routinely participates in juried national and international competitions and won many awards over the past two decades. His sweeping, cinematic compositions reflect his beginnings as a professional artist in Mexico when he was creating backdrops for theatre productions.  He has also completed some impressive murals, including an exterior visual titled “Beginning and End” for the Instituto de Investigaciones Jagüey (Jagüey Research Institute) in San Martin de las Piramides, Mexico.

Since Cano came to NSU to complete his master’s degree in 2021 and joined the faculty in 2022, he has immersed himself into the community through portrait work and local exhibitions. He was designer for the mural at the Ben D. Johnson Education Center titled “Seeds of Hope,” a celebration of Natchitoches’ agricultural heritage that was completed by a community of volunteers.

Information on Cano is available at. https://www.edgarcanostudio.com/.  Information on NSU’s Department of Fine and Graphic Arts is available at https://www.nsula.edu/art/.