The Vilcek Foundation, a nonprofit that raises awareness of the contributions of immigrant to American history and culture, announced the recipients of its 20th annual prizes for excellence in the arts and sciences. Among this year’s honorees was Matthew Bogdanos, a former classics scholar, US Marine colonel, and current assistant district attorney in New York.
Bogdanos is a familiar figure in the art world. In 2017, he launched the Antiquities Trafficking Unit, a division of the New York District Attorney’s office dedicated to recovering and repatriating looted antiquities. Since its inception, the unit has seized more than 5,000 objects from museums, auction houses, and private collectors, with a combined estimated value exceeding $300 million.
ARTnews followed one of Bogdanos’s most high-profile investigations, into New York hedge-fund pioneer and art collector Michael Steinhardt, for its 2022 Top 200 Collectors issue.
This year, the foundation awarded Bogdanos the Marica Vilcek Prize in Art History, which carries a $100,000 purse, in recognition of his “lifelong dedication to recovering looted antiquities and his work to safeguard cultural artifacts.” Bogdanos declined the cash award; the foundation will instead donate the funds to nonprofits of his choosing.
“What makes Bogdanos’s work remarkable is not just his success in any single endeavor, but his refusal to rest on those successes,” reads a profile on the foundation’s website. “Each criminal conviction is not an endpoint but a launching pad for the next mission. As Bogdanos notes about illicit art from World War II still being recovered today, ‘The battle must be joined today to stop the destruction before it is too late.’”
The Vilcek Foundation has presented its annual prizes since 2006 and, to date, has awarded $9.6 million to recipients.
