NEW YORK—If the Venice Biennale is indeed the art-world equivalent of the Olympics, the 76 countries vying for this year's Golden Lion have a fair amount of national pride at stake, and the artists represented in pavilions, already in the international spotlight, stand to draw even more recognition from the prize. But in an art market where careers tend to be made during weekend-long art fairs and confirmed in the seconds between bids at auction, the impact of a major art prize or award like the Golden Lion on a winning artist's market must be tracked over a much longer period of time.

Awards come with cash prizes of varying sizes—and they are often quite substantial sums. But the real value of most major awards stems from the visibility that comes with winning. The exposure can catch the attention of high-power dealers and notable collectors alike and help shape the long-term market for an artist's work in ways that reverberate throughout a career.

Emerging Interest

While the Golden Lion typically honors artists who already have a strong level of international recognition, several major prizes worldwide are devoted exclusively to emerging artists and spotting exceptional talent early, such as the €35,000 Prix Marcel Duchamp hosted by Paris's Centre Pompidou and the €50,000 Nationalgalerie Prize for Young Art, conferred in Berlin.

New York offers two of the more prestigious prizes for young artists—the Bucksbaum Award, hosted by the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Altoids Award, announced last year by the New Museum of Contemporary Art—but a museum a little bit outside the city, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in nearby Ridgefield, Connecticut, runs what may be the region's most prescient award devoted to spotting new talent and bringing it wider attention.

Established in 1997, the inaugural Aldrich Emerging Artist prize (winners receive a $5000 award and a solo exhibition at the museum) went to Roxy Paine, who in the years since has landed at a prestigious Chelsea gallery (James Cohan), and placed his biology- and technology-inspired installations in important museum collections around the country, including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Currently, Paine has a stunning site-specific installation in Madison Square Park, on through December 31.

That level of interest, however, often takes time to develop. "It's not like I had a big windfall of attention and sales after he won," said Chicago dealer Lisa Boyle of one of her artists, Josh Azzarella, who won the Aldrich prize in 2006. In fact, the biggest single spike in the artist's sales came in 2005, when Boyle first showed his work at the Aqua art fair in Miami.

What the prize did provide was a lasting touchstone for potential collectors. "It gives an entrance point to a conversation about the work," explained Boyle. "It's helpful to discuss the award and the idea that he had a solo museum exhibition because it connects him to an institution that most collectors already know." According to Boyle, the award has helped to steadily fuel sales in Azzarella's work, particularly among New York collectors who know the Aldrich well.

Mid-Career Milestones

There is an even larger number of awards globally that honor mid-career artists than there are accolades for emerging talent, including the €50,000 Vincent van Gogh Biennial Award for Contemporary Art, hosted by the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the £30,000 Deutsche Borse Photography Prize at The Photographers Gallery in London. As with awards for lesser-known artists, the market gains that these awards promise have to be measured in the long-term, and sometimes the payout takes a form other than higher sales figures.

The Hugo Boss Prize offers a $50,000 prize, but "the most incredible thing about winning," said British-born, Berlin-based artist and 2006 winner Tacita Dean, "was the exhibition at the Guggenheim." For a mid-career artist like Dean who already has a well-established place in the art world, a show at a major museum—in her case, a four-month run at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York—is an exciting opportunity to reach a much wider audience.