Beacon Resident Wins Guggenheim

Third straight year for local recognitions
For the third year in a row, a local resident has won a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Reid Davenport, who lives in Beacon, was among 223 recipients of the annual award, which provides scholars, artists, writers, historians and scientists with grants ranging from about $30,000 to $45,000 to provide "blocks of time in which fellows can work with as much creative freedom as possible," according to the Guggenheim Foundation. The honors were announced on Tuesday (April 14).

Davenport is a documentary filmmaker who premiered Life After (2025) and I Didn't See You There (2022) at the Sundance Film Festival. Davenport, who has cerebral palsy, describes himself online as a "disabled filmmaker telling disabled stories through a political lens."
Jessica Pisano, a Philipstown resident who is a professor at The New School for Social Research in New York City, was named a fellow in 2024, and Gwen Laster, a violinist who lives in Beacon, was among the honorees in 2025.
Adam James Smith, a documentary filmmaker who has a home in Lake Peekskill in Putnam County, was also honored this year. His upcoming films include Nighthawk, set in Shenzhen's vast art factory and In the Valley of Solace, about a woman living alone and off the land in a remote Yunnan valley.