Medalists to get Saltus Award

Bogomil Nikolov of Bulgaria will receive the 2017 J. Sanford Saltus Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Art of the Medal, while Geer Steyn of the Netherlands will be given the 2018 Saltus Award, the American Numismatic Society has announced.

The award medals will be presented to the artists by Donald Scarinci, who chairs the Saltus Award Committee. This will occur at the XXXV congress of the International Art Medal Federation, which will be held May 29-June 2 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Having first studied applied arts at the Stroganov Higher Applied Art Institute (Moscow), and then mural painting at the National Academy of Arts (Sofia), Bogomil Nikolov (b. 1943) began to turn his attention to medallic art. Since the 1970s, he has exhibited his work internationally, receiving notable accolades. In 1996, he began teaching at his alma mater in Sofia, rising to full professor in 2002. As head of the Medallic Sculpture Studio at the National Academy of Art, he has had tremendous influence on the current course of medallic art in Bulgaria, supervising scores of students and exhibitions of their work.

Geer Steyn (b. 1945) began his studies in sculpture at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam, where he initially followed the Academy’s traditional emphasis in figurative work. Thereafter, he studied with Fritz Wotruba (1907-1975), a preeminent Austrian abstract sculptor, who greatly influenced Steyn’s subsequent work. Besides his work in medallic art, Steyn is widely known and praised for his large-scale sculptures in stone that have been featured in exhibits alongside his medals.