More than 300 artists, collectors, and philanthropists filled Tribeca Rooftop on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, and by the end of the night the Rema Hort Mann Fund had $1.5 million it did not have that morning. The gala marked thirty years since the Hort family founded the organization in memory of their daughter Rema, who died of stomach cancer at 30, and it used the anniversary to start something new: a grant for artists who are living with cancer themselves.
The evening’s total was raised in a room built for the purpose, at Tribeca Rooftop, 2 Desbrosses Street, with a benefit art auction hosted by Phillips running online from October 19 and live on the night. Eighty-five donated works went under the hammer, including pieces by Mickalene Thomas, Kehinde Wiley, Dana Schutz, and Njideka Akunyili Crosby.
Thirty Years, $9.5 Million, Two Missions
Since 1995, the fund has distributed $9.5 million through rapid-response grants: more than 650 emerging artists at decisive moments in their careers, and 2,400 cancer patients and their families, through its Peter Hort Quality of Life grants, which cover the practical costs of treatment, from childcare and phone bills to travel and housing.
The honorees traced that history. Founder Susan Hort was honored alongside philanthropic partners George Wells and Manfred Rantner, and interdisciplinary artist Jacolby Satterwhite. Tributes came from Mickalene Thomas and Dr. Shoshana Hort.
The New Grant Merges the Fund’s Two Reasons to Exist
Satterwhite has lived with cancer and its complications since childhood; he was diagnosed with bone cancer at 11. At the gala he was named the inaugural recipient of the Artists Living with Cancer Grant, receiving $25,000 in an award funded jointly by the Rema Hort Mann Fund and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.
The program then continues at a set scale: at least $10,000 in unrestricted funding to each of 10 visual artists living with cancer in the New York metropolitan area, artists in active treatment who need to keep working while they heal.
“Jacolby’s very brave and public battle with cancer really opened our eyes to the plight of artists facing a cancer diagnosis in a world where healthcare costs are just so high,” said board chair Carole Server Frankel. The new grant, she explained, marries the fund’s Emerging Artist grants and its Peter Hort Quality of Life grants into a single award.
Why the Merger Matters
For thirty years, the fund’s two missions ran side by side: money for artists, money for patients. The Artists Living with Cancer Grant is the first program that refuses to separate them, aimed at the person who is both at once. It is a small program by the numbers, ten artists at $10,000 or more, and a precise one: unrestricted cash, in the metropolitan area where the fund’s community already gathers, for artists whose treatment and practice are competing for the same hours.
The next check this organization writes will go to someone painting through chemotherapy. That is the anniversary gift the Horts chose to give.
The Social Register’s event directory tracks the season’s galas, benefits, and society evenings. Plan your next evening there.
