Director’s Talks: Maria Nicanor in Conversation with Robert Earl Paige, 2026 National Design Award Winner, Design Visionary

Join Cooper Hewitt for a talk with Design Visionary Award winner Robert Earl Paige—the first program in a new series spotlighting the 2026 National Design Award winners in conversation with Director Maria Nicanor. 

Paige is an artist, designer, and educator whose work disregards boundaries between fine art, craft, and design. A participant in the Black Arts Movement, Paige champions community engagement in art and culture, and his practice reflects a love of color, a commitment to design principles, and a belief in making art accessible for everyday people. Repurposing is central to his work, transforming found fibers, cardboard, and paper into new creations that invite others to embrace curiosity and making. 

About the Series 

In this monthly series, Maria Nicanor, Director of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, sits down with the 2026 National Design Award winners for one‑on‑one conversations at the museum. Spanning design disciplines and the ten award categories, each talk offers an inside look at the innovation, practice, and vision behind the work of this year’s winners.  

The National Design Awards is a Cooper Hewitt initiative launched in 2000 as an official project of the White House Millennium Council. The awards and its associated public programs seek to increase national awareness of the impact of design in our everyday life. 

SPEAKERS 

Robert Earl Paige is an artist, designer, and educator whose work disregards boundaries between fine art, craft, and design. After earning a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and working for Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, Paige transitioned to creating commercial objects and fashion, partnering with Fiorio and Sears to produce scarves and interior décor. In the 1970s, his signature Dakkabar Collection, home furnishings inspired by West African textiles, was sold in over 100 Sears stores nationwide, introducing Black visual culture into mainstream design. A participant in the Black Arts Movement, Paige champions community engagement in art and culture, and his practice reflects a love of color, a commitment to design principles, and a belief in making art accessible for everyday people. Repurposing is central to his work, transforming found fibers, cardboard, and paper into new creations that invite others to embrace curiosity and making. His works have been exhibited at Salon 94 Design, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and the SMART Museum of Art, and he has held residencies at the DuSable Museum of African American History, Schomburg Center, and Hyde Park Art Center. 

Maria Nicanor is an architecture and design curator and historian. She is passionate about public access to culture and rethinking the traditional roles of museums by experimenting with new storytelling formats that connect cultural institutions with civic life. Before joining Cooper Hewitt as its director, Nicanor was the executive director of Rice Design Alliance at the Rice University School of Architecture, director of the Norman Foster Foundation in Madrid, and a curator at the Design, Architecture, and Digital Department of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Before that, Nicanor spent almost a decade as a curator working on exhibitions and architecture initiatives at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. 

Accessibility & What to Expect: 

• Format: The program will begin with a brief welcome, then the speakers will engage in a moderated conversation. It will end with an optional Q&A with the audience.   
• About the space: This program will take place in Cooper Hewitt’s Lecture Room on the Ground floor of the museum. It is fully wheelchair accessible. There is an accessible restroom on the Ground floor. Read more about accessibility at Cooper Hewitt. 
• Accommodations: The program will have live CART captioning. If we can provide additional services to support your participation, email us at CHEducation@si.edu or let us know when you register. Please make your request as far in advance as possible—preferably at least ten days before the program date.  
• Recording: The program will be recorded and posted on Cooper Hewitt’s YouTube channel within two weeks. 

SUPPORT 

The 2026 Smithsonian National Design Awards and Design Across Time: Exploring the Smithsonian’s Design Collection received generous support from: 

LISA ROBERTS AND DAVID SELTZER
JON AND SHIGEMI IWATA 

AMITA AND PURNENDU CHATTERJEE
ALEXANDRA & PAUL HERZAN
TARGET
TERRA FOUNDATION FOR AMERICAN ART
ARTHUR F. AND ALICE E. ADAMS FOUNDATION 

HENRY R. MUÑOZ III
IRENE AU AND BRADLEY HOROWITZ
CHRIS AND IRMA FRALIC
KIM AND AL EIBER
MARGARET GOULD STEWART AND DAVID STEWART
STEVE MILLER
KIMBERLY SCHUESSLER 

VICTOR CALISE
ALAN DYE
SHELBY GANS
HELEN HINTZ
PAUL LEINWAND
JOHN MAEDA
NATALIE NIXON
KAREN PHILLIPS
KEITH YAMASHITA