Art Ball 2025

Honorees This Year's Theme Event Highlights Your Impact Get Tickets Sponsor Opportunities Sponsors

Join us for an extraordinary evening at The Newark Museum of Art’s annual Art Ball, a cornerstone of New Jersey’s cultural calendar. This year, we showcase the nation’s most misunderstood state with levity and affection.

This year’s Art Ball will take place on

Wednesday, May 7, 2025

at The Newark Museum of Art.

Honorees

Each year, the Art Ball shines a spotlight on individuals whose creativity, leadership, and commitment to the arts have made a significant impact on our community and beyond.

For 2025, we are proud to honor exceptional talents who have each, in their unique way, contributed to the cultural and artistic landscape, enriching lives and inspiring minds.

We invite you to celebrate their achievements and contributions to the arts with us.

Linda C. Harrison

The Beatrice Winser Award

As Director and CEO of The Newark Museum of Art, Linda Harrison has overseen a variety of transformative initiatives, from collaborating with Newark’s Mayor, Ras J. Baraka, to establish the downtown arts and education district to developing Museum Parc, a large-scale mixed-use community project on the Museum’s campus.

In the last six years, Linda Harrison has helped shape a broader, more prosperous, and more inclusive story of our diverse America and ensure that The Newark Museum of Art is a museum for all. She has leveraged the museum’s illustrious history of national leadership in collecting from artists representing diverse global cultures, setting new standards for how museums everywhere can tell a more truthful story of who we are. She has supported a staff of museum professionals that is second to none in their knowledge, skills, and sensitivities for telling stories and allowing people of all backgrounds to see themselves in the exhibitions.

Prior to leading the Newark Museum of Art, Harrison served as director of the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, CA, from 2013 to 2018. Her background also includes business and real estate experience.Today, she is one of a handful of Black people leading a U.S. art museum.

Shahzia Sikander

The 2025 Artistic Impact Award

Shahzia Sikander is an internationally exhibiting artist who is celebrated for subverting Central and South-Asian manuscript painting traditions and launching the form known today as neo-miniature.

Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Sikander earned a B.F.A. in 1991 from the National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore. Sikander’s breakthrough work, The Scroll, 1989–90, received national critical acclaim in Pakistan and brought international recognition to this medium within contemporary art practices in the 1990s. Sikander received her M.F.A. at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1995.

Sikander’s NOW, 2023 is a large-scale outdoor sculpture on long-term display. A luminous artwork made of bronze and measuring eight feet high, the female figure represented in NOW nods to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (with an incised lace collar around the figure’s neck). Fittingly, NOW will stand just feet away from the newly named Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hall at Rutgers University, Newark, where Ginsburg was a law professor and whose commitment to social justice was an inspiration to Sikander.

mobil station promo newark museum of art

NMOA Art Ball 2025

This Year's Theme

The nation’s most diverse and densely populated state is also its most misunderstood. From mountains, seashore, suburbs, pine barrens and farms to the inventors, activists, soldiers, teachers and artists, New Jersey is the microcosm of America and a historic center for enterprise and ingenuity. This year Art Ball celebrates the subversive spirit, paradoxes, and beautiful complexity that we call home.

—

George A. Tice, Petit’s Mobil Station, Cherry Hill, NJ, 1974, printed 2006, Platinum I Palladium, 18½ x 23¼ in. (47 x 59.1 cm) Purchase 2007 Helen McMahon Brady Cutting Fund

May 4, 2024 | Art Ball. Photo by Mike Peters

Event Highlights

Join us in applauding the quirky, tenacious, and creative Garden State.

6pm: Cocktails. Connect & conspire.
7pm: Recognition of our distinguished honorees.
8pm: Dining amidst the Museum’s world-class galleries.
9pm: Dessert. Dancing & reveling.

Photo by Mike Peters

Your Impact

Art Ball directly supports NMOA’s mission, fostering growth and innovation. Your participation helps us offer unparalleled programming, maintain our extensive collections, and ensure access to art for all. Last year, we raised nearly $1 million, expanding our community reach and enhancing our offerings.

Donate

Sponsor Opportunities

Sponsoring Art Ball 2025 is an unparalleled opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to the arts and to the community, ensuring the Museum continues to be a beacon of culture, education, and inspiration. Each sponsorship level offers unique benefits, from exclusive experiences and significant brand visibility to meaningful engagement with our diverse and sophisticated audience.

To explore these opportunities further and find the perfect fit for your goals, please contact Audrey Carmeli at acarmeli@newarkmuseumart.org or call 973.596.5158.

Download the 2025 Art Ball Sponsorship Kit

Presenting | $250,000

VIP experience for twenty (20) guests, Presenting Sponsor and logo recognition in Art Ball 2025 social media channels (4.8M impressions) and event program. Recognition inannual report. Presenting Sponsor and logo recognition on Art Ball 2024 web page. Prominent recognition on funders panel in NMOA Welcome Center. Free admission to The Newark Museum of Art for all employees and three (3) guests for one year; VIP tickets to NMOA exhibition openings; one private after-hours Museum tour, one complimentary rental of the Engelhard Court for a corporate event; bespoke virtual experiences/employee enrichment opportunities, and one private Shop event with champagne.

Visionary | $100,000

VIP experience for twenty (20) guests, logo recognition in Art Ball 2025 social media channels (4.8M impressions) and event program. Recognition in annual report. Logo recognition on Art Ball 2024 web page. Prominent recognition on funders panel in NMOA Welcome Center. Free admission to The Newark Museum of Art for all employees and three (3) guests for one year; VIP tickets to NMOA exhibition openings; one private after-hours Museum tour, one complimentary rental of the Engelhard Court for a corporate event; and bespoke virtual experiences/employee enrichment opportunities.

Leadership | $50,000

Exclusive experience for ten (10) guests, recognition in Art Ball 2025 social media channels (4.8M impressions), event program, and annual report. Logo recognition on Art Ball 2024 web page. Prominent recognition on funders panel in NMOA Welcome Center. Free admission to The Newark Museum of Art for all employees and three (3) guests for one year; VIP tickets to NMOA exhibition openings; and one private after-hours Museum tour.

Sponsor | $25,000

Preferred experience for ten (10) guests, recognition in Art Ball 2025 social media channels (4.8M impressions), event program, and annual report. Logo recognition on Art Ball 2024 web page. Prominent recognition on funders panel in NMOA Welcome Center. Free admission to The Newark Museum of Art for all employees and three (3) guests for one year; and VIP tickets to NMOA exhibition openings.

Patron | $10,000

Art Ball Experience for four (4) guests; Free admission to The Newark Museum of Art for all employees for one year; Listing in Art Ball 2025 webpage, event program, and annual report.

Gold Ticket | $2,500

Art Ball experience for one (1) guest ($2,200 tax-deductible). Listing in Art Ball 2025 event program and annual report.