The Rockefeller Brothers Fund Announces 2026 Visual Arts Residencies at The Pocantico Center

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) announced today that Matthew Gilbert will be awarded the 2026 Pocantico Prize for Visual Artists. Gilbert will receive a $25,000 grant and a two-month residency at The Pocantico Center, a cultural venue and conference center on the former Rockefeller family estate in Tarrytown, NY. 

Gilbert is a sculptor and textile artist based in the Hudson Valley. Their intricate models and installations blend queer aesthetic, dark humor, and anachronistic architecture to explore themes of isolation and yearning. They arrange and juxtapose metal, fabric, and other materials to create immersive, experiential narratives. While in residence at Pocantico from October 1 to November 30, Gilbert will create ornamental metalwork that interacts with textiles, blending masculine and feminine traditions.

“This residency supports my continued development, allowing me the time, space, and resources to examine the physical and cultural significance of more costly materials,” Gilbert said. “Connecting with the communities around Pocantico will be fundamental to this residency because the stories in my pieces come alive when viewers project their own narratives onto the scenes.” 

The Pocantico Prize is funded by the RBF Culpeper Arts and Culture program, which supports the creative process through grants to arts organizations in the Fund’s home city of New York and at Pocantico. 

“Residencies at Pocantico complement our grantmaking by supporting individual artists directly and fostering the conditions necessary for them to flourish,” said Ben Rodriguez Cubeñas, director of the RBF Culpeper Arts & Culture program. “Matthew Gilbert’s work to uncover the histories materials carry and investigate divisions within exemplifies the kind of exploration this prize was designed to support.” 

Gilbert will open their studio at the David Rockefeller Creative Arts Center at Pocantico (DR Center) for public visitation this fall; additional details to be announced. 

Previous winners of the Pocantico Prize include Athena LaTocha, Amaryllis Flowers, Chie Fueki, and Ada del Pilar Ortiz. 

The RBF also announced that Yunjin La-mei Woo has been selected for the Parent Artist Residency, a program designed to meet the specific needs of working parents who are also artists, now in its second year. She will receive three weeks of family accommodations at Pocantico, exclusive use of the DR Center studio, a $2,000 stipend, and free enrollment for up to three children at the nearby Tarrytown Arts Camp.

Woo is an interdisciplinary artist and writer based in Denver, Colorado, whose work engages contagion, haunting, and spiritual mediation through installation, sound, video, performance, and writing. During her residency at Pocantico, she will draw on Korean mythology to examine the idea of illness as a ghostly presence of the past living in the body of the present. 

The public is invited to visit Woo in the studio at the DR Center on July 18, from 2:00–4:00 p.m. The open studio will be accessible with free registration to Woven Wonders: Kykuit’s Picasso Tapestries, now on view in the DR Center gallery. 

“Art is a public service. As rents and other costs rise rapidly, residencies are one of the best ways we can provide artists with the space, time, and support to grow and conceptualize new work,” said Elly Weisenberg, senior manager of public programs and residencies at Pocantico. “The Rockefeller family has hosted artists on this property for over a century, and we are proud to continue that tradition of support at The Pocantico Center.”