Steve McQueen Awarded $172,000 Erasmus Prize
4March 31, 2026
British filmmmakerSteve McQueenhas been named the winner of the 2026Erasmus Prize, the Dutch version of the Nobel, whose theme this year was “Ecce Homo, Behold the Human Being.”
The award, presented annually by the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation, is not reserved for artists but is given to a person or institution that has made “an exceptional contribution to the humanities, the social sciences or the arts in Europe and beyond.” It is accompanied by €150,000 cash (about $172,000). The foundation in a press release lauded McQueen for his “unwavering commitment to the human spirit,” saying, “In a world marked by polarization and inequality, McQueen’s work asks us to look carefully and without prejudice—ecce homo—and to recognize ourselves in others.”
McQueen was born in 1969 in London, the son of a father from Grenada and a mother from Trinidad. Widely seen as one of the most important filmmakers of his generation, he is known for intense works addressing difficult topics. He first gained acclaim for his 1990 film The Bear, a ten-minute short exploring themes of aggression, homoeroticism, and race. Among his feature films are Hunger (2008), about the 1981 Irish hunger strike, and Shame (2011), about an executive’s battle with sex addiction. His searing historical drama 12 Years a Slave in 2014 became the first film by a Black director to win best picture at the Academy Awards. His Small Axe series (2020), set within London’s West Indian community of the late 1960s to 1980s, deals with issues of class and racism, while his 2023 documentary Occupied City, which clocks in at nearly thirty-four hours, juxtaposes Nazi-occupied Amsterdam with the present-day city. His latest work, Atlas (2026), investigates the boundaries of space, perspective, memory, and time. McQueen won the Turner Prize in 1999 and in 2024 was given the Volta Lifetime Achievement Award, one of Ireland’s most prestigious film honors.
The prize will be presented to McQueen this fall. Previous winners include artists Henry Moore, Grayson Perry, Sigmar Polke, and Bernd and Hilla Becher; writers Isaiah Berlin, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Václav Havel; filmmaker Ingmar Bergman; and architect Renzo Piano.