Vija Celmins
Close looking, natural imagery and LACMA’s Art+Film Gala
An artist of sustained attention
Vija Celmins works across painting, drawing, sculpture and printmaking. Ocean surfaces, desert floors and night skies recur in her art, often translated from photographic sources into another medium. The subjects can be vast, but the making is attentive to detail: the image becomes something to look at slowly rather than a scene to pass through.
The 2026 LACMA honor
LACMA named Celmins an honoree of its fifteenth Art+Film Gala on November 7, 2026, alongside filmmaker Denis Villeneuve. The museum’s biography traces her move from paintings of studio objects in the early 1960s toward found photographs, graphite and a continuing practice across media. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1997.
From the artist to the benefit
Our gala report connects the honorees’ work with LACMA’s film initiative and wider museum mission. Eva Chow and Leonardo DiCaprio are the co-chairs, and ROSÉ is the announced musical guest. Those roles remain distinct from Celmins’s honor. Read the report for the benefit’s purpose and access arrangements, and explore the museum’s biography for her exhibition history and artistic background.