The National Sculpture Society (NSS) will honor Robin R. Salmon at its Annual Awards Dinner on June 4, 2022. Ms. Salmon is the Vice President of Art & Historical Collections and Curator of Sculpture at Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolina. The award consists of a certificate and a medal designed by Laura Gardin Fraser in 1929. Past recipients include Archer Huntington, Daniel Chester French, Malvina Hoffman, Joseph Veach Noble, Elliot Offner, Stanley Bleifeld, and James J. Jennewein.

The Medal of Honor will be presented to Ms. Salmon in recognition of her outstanding support of American Sculpture through her work as a professional curator, historian, archivist, writer, and editor. In addition to her tenure at Brookgreen Gardens, she has served as board member, executive committee member, and exhibitions advisor for the National Sculpture Society over the past few decades, and at times has served in all of those capacities at once.

As Vice President of Art & Historical Collections and Curator of Sculpture at Brookgreen Gardens, Ms. Salmon is responsible for the acquisition, documentation, exhibition, and conservation of Brookgreen’s art, history, library, and archives collections and oversees the programs at Brookgreen’s Center for American Sculpture. These include residencies and workshops which attract artists and students from around the world. Brookgreen’s outstanding collection of American sculpture currently includes nearly 3,000 works by over 450 sculptors. Exhibited within the gardens is the largest and most comprehensive collection of American figurative sculpture in the country, by sculptors who worked from the early nineteenth century to the present.

Robin Salmon is the author of five books on Brookgreen Gardens, co-author of eight books on other art and history subjects, and she has written numerous essays and articles for exhibit catalogues, magazines, and other publications. She also edited the National Sculpture Society’s annual awards exhibition catalogue for several years and was largely responsible for its improved format and content. A longtime member of the editorial board of Sculpture Review magazine, she is now Co-Editor in Chief.

Ms. Salmon is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and the Museum Management Institute. She serves on the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee of the United States Mint and is President of the Board of Directors of the Georgetown County (SC) Historical Society and Museum. She has been honored previously by the National Sculpture Society with its Sculpture House Award (2007) and by the Artist’s Fellowship of New York City with its Gari Melcher’s Memorial Medal (2018).

National Sculpture Society is the oldest organization of professional sculptors in the United States. Leading U.S. sculptors and architects founded the NSS in the nineteenth century to “spread the knowledge of good sculpture.”  Today, NSS continues to encourage excellence in sculpture throughout the United States, to which end its programs are directed. Brookgreen Gardens is this nation’s first public sculpture garden, is a National Historical Landmark, and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

The dinner will be held at the historic Seven Hills Inn in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, in conjunction with the NSS Sculpture Celebration Weekend.