The Nancy Regan Arts Prize

In 2021, on the occasion of her retirement from the Board and to honor her contribution to CAF, co-founder Nancy Regan (left, with her husband Tom) agreed to CAF establishing the Nancy Regan Arts Prize, an annual award of $2000 given to an individual or team who applied that year for a grant from the organization, or who had produced an outstanding body of work in support of animal rights. All media—including performance, dance, music, craft, film, and the visual arts—are open for consideration.

2024: J. M. Coetzee

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the publication of The Lives of Animals and Disgrace, CAF gave the 2024 Nancy Regan Arts prize to J. M. Coetzee, the South African-born novelist, multiple Booker Prize winner, and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature. For more on the award, and for the novelist’s reaction, click here. For the transcript of a webinar held on The Lives of Animals, click here. The video is below.

2023: Isa Leshko

In 2023, CAF gave the prize to Isa Leshko, a 2016 grantee. Isa is the author of Allowed to Grow Old: Portraits of Elderly Animals from Farm Sanctuaries, the research for which she received a CAF grant in 2016. Watch a video essay about Isa Leshko by Laura Alvear Roa below.

2022: Sue Coe

In 2022, the Prize was awarded to the British-born satirist and political artist Sue Coe. Board member Suzanne Pender said: “Sue’s work bears powerful witness to the injustices of our world, with breathtaking artistry, steadfast determination, and compassionate intimacy. Hopefully, one day our world will transform and evolve from the nightmarish reality Sue challenges us to confront.” You can listen to Sue on the Our Hen House podcast or watch her conversation with board member Kim Stallwood below.

2021: Joan Chan Wing Yan

In 2021, the inaugural Nancy Regan Arts Prize was given to Hong Kong–based graphic artist Joan Chan Wing Yan, whose oeuvre then-CAF President Mia MacDonald called, “a great representation of the kind of work the Nancy Regan Arts Prize and the Foundation supports.”

“Tom Regan’s pioneering work in the 1980s did much to give shape to the animal rights movement. Since his death, and Nancy’s, their work has been ably carried further by the Culture & Animals Foundation. It is an honour to be associated with the names of the Regans.”—J. M. Coetzee

Isa Leshko

“I am really struggling to get recognition and support for the work. And then I discover the Culture & Animals Foundation. It was just remarkable to see a foundation that is actually encouraging you to make this work.”—Isa Leshko

Sue Coe

“When I received the Outstanding National Activist Award from CAF in 1994, it was shocking. It was stunning, and such a beautiful gift. And now this gift: it’s a bookend to forty years of work. It means a lot to me.”—Sue Coe

“I am grateful and honored to receive this award. It’s a difficult time for many people. I’m hoping with the difficulty comes a higher understanding of suffering, and we can be kinder to all sentient beings.”—Joan Chan Wing Yan