The Royal Drawing School runs several of its own residency programmes which can benefit Alumni. When applications are open to alumni you will be informed via email. For full details about the residencies which the School is currently running, please see the Royal Drawing School Residencies Page.
Please note: The organisations below are not connected to the Royal Drawing School so please take the time to research any opportunity carefully before investing your time and money in applying. For example, it can be helpful to look at which artists have been selected in the past, who sits on any judging panel and to visit the relevant exhibition.
Residencies Advice
A note on fees - many organisations have set up 'residencies'. Are some really a residency opportunity, or more of just a short-term studio rental?
A note on contact - residencies offer different levels of curatorial/peer support and contact.
There are many guides to residencies available online. Here are some that are useful:
Guardian Article
Transcript of live-chat with venues and artists.
Artist Communities
(US-Focused)
A useful guide to the whole residency search/application/participation process. Good tips on making strong applications.
Gwarlingo Article
(US-Focused)
Written by an arts coordinator. Gives an informed overview of things to consider when applying for residencies.
(US-Focused)
Written by an arts coordinator. Gives an informed overview of things to consider when applying for residencies.
Residencies Listings Websites
Worldwide network of artist residencies
Residencies in West Norway
Dutch-run listings of international residencies
Localizart
Alluring selection of international residencies. Be aware though that with many of them you have to pay to participate...
Localizart
Alluring selection of international residencies. Be aware though that with many of them you have to pay to participate...
Blouin Art Info Article
An article detailing 20 top artist residencies and retreats across the United States.
Kultur Kontakt Nord
Nordic Culture Point funds residencies for individual artists or small groups at various centres in the Nordic-Baltic region, which you can view on their website. They encourage 2 - 4 month residencies, up to a maximum of three years. You can use their site as a listings website, but apply directly to each residency.
Cill Rialaig Project
Deadline: Rolling - contact retreat@cillrialaigartscentre.org for information
Website
Deadline: Rolling - contact retreat@cillrialaigartscentre.org for information
Website
Built out of the ruins of a 1790s pre-famine Irish village atop a cliff face overlooking the Atlantic, Cill Rialaig offers artists, writers and other creative professionals an opportunity to focus entirely on their artistic practice. Its cottages are live-work spaces that provide for residents' essential work and living needs, without television, telephones or internet. Residencies are free, although there is a small service fee for utilities. Artists are responsible for their own transport, food and supplies.
retreat@cillrialaigartscentre.org + 353 66 9479297
Previous residents include alumni Clara Drummond, Jonathan Farr, Phoebe Cope and Jennifer McRae.
Owl Barn Residency is a community of artists, makers and thinkers in Gloucestershire. A space for residents to develop their own creative practice as well as possibilities to engage with the local community and on the land. The residency is an exchange, with a free studio space in the Owl Barn, a space to live in the Parlour below and basic food. In return, they ask residents to give three hours a day from Monday to Friday to community work in the local area and working on the land around the Owl Barn.
Online application form, no fee.
BAF Fellowship Programme offers a residency in North County Mayo, Ireland. Suggested term is at least 4 weeks. Focus is on responses to the local landscape and community. Open to visual artists worldwide with professional standing in their fields (paintings, printmaking, drawing, photography, sculpture) and emerging artists of recognized ability. 'No particular style is sought'. Private studio, shared printmaking studio, and nearby self-catering cottage accommodation provided. Each artist is asked to contribute to the Archive collection, in consultation with the Founding Directors.
Postal application.
Application fee of €35
250 fully-funded residencies are awarded annually to artists worldwide in various disciplines. Residencies include a room, board, exclusive studio. Artists with a professional standing in their fields, as well as emerging artists. Not students. Stipends are available to help with travel etc. 32 artists' studios in 450 acres of woodland and fields. 'The Colony nurtures the arts by offering creative individual of the highest talent an inspiring environment in which they can produce enduring works of the imagination.' 250 residencies are awarded annually to artists worldwide in various disciplines. Residencies include a room, board, exclusive studio. Artists with a professional standing in their fields, as well as emerging artists. Not students.
They receive approximately 2,500 applications a year, and on average 1 in 10 are offered a residency.
Online application, $30 fee.
Postal application.
Application fee of €35
MacDowell Artists' Colony
Deadlines: 15 April 2015, 15 September 2015, 15 January 2016
250 fully-funded residencies are awarded annually to artists worldwide in various disciplines. Residencies include a room, board, exclusive studio. Artists with a professional standing in their fields, as well as emerging artists. Not students. Stipends are available to help with travel etc. 32 artists' studios in 450 acres of woodland and fields. 'The Colony nurtures the arts by offering creative individual of the highest talent an inspiring environment in which they can produce enduring works of the imagination.' 250 residencies are awarded annually to artists worldwide in various disciplines. Residencies include a room, board, exclusive studio. Artists with a professional standing in their fields, as well as emerging artists. Not students.
They receive approximately 2,500 applications a year, and on average 1 in 10 are offered a residency.
Online application, $30 fee.
Deadline: 14 January 2015
The Abbey Scholarship and Abbey Fellowships offer an all-expenses-paid residency at the British School in Rome, with a stipend of up to £700 a month for the Scholar and £800 for Fellows. The nine-month Abbey Scholarship is usually given to an emergent painter, while the three-month Abbey Fellowships are awarded to mid-career painters. Abbey Awards are open to people of UK and US nationality, and to citizens of other countries provided that they have lived in the UK or the US for at least 5 years. There is no age limit.
Application fee of £25.
BSR Sainsbury Scholarship in Painting and Sculpture
Deadline: 30 January 2015
This award from the British School at Rome provides a spacious studio in Rome, grant of £700 per month for 12 months, plus a grant for travel within Italy of £1,200. Open to ‘promising and ambitious painters and sculptors of outstanding potential, who will also be able to submit a portfolio of recent drawings.
Applicants must be under 30 on 1 October 2015, be fine art graduates, be of British nationality, or have been working professionally or studying at postgraduate level for at least the last 5 years in the UK or Commonwealth.
Application fee of £25 (This also covers entry to the Rome Fellowship in Contemporary Art and the Derek Hill Foundation Scholarship)
BSR Derek Hill Foundation Scholarship
Deadline: 30 January 2015
This award from the British School at Rome provides board and accommodation in a residential studio for 3 months (October – December 2015), along with a grant of £950 per month. ‘To encourage artists for whom the use of paint and/or drawing is important to the development of their work.’
Applicants must be of British or Irish nationality, aged 24 or over on 1 September 2015. Selection is made by members of the Faculty of the Fine Arts of the British School at Rome, and a representative of the Derek Hill Foundation. Interviews to be held 3 March 2015.
Application fee of £25 (This also covers entry to the Rome Fellowship in Contemporary Art and the Sainsbury Scholarship in Painting and Sculpture)
BSR Fellowship in Contemporary Art
Deadline: tbc
This award from the British School at Rome provides a research and gravel grant of £1,500 per month, for 3 months (October – December 2015). Further information tba. Applicants must be of British or Commonwealth nationality, or have been working professionally or studying at postgraduate level for at least the last three years in the UK or Commonwealth.
Application fee of £25 (If you applied for the 2015-16 Derek Hill Foundation Scholarship and/or Sainsbury Scholarship in Painting and Sculpture no additional fee is payable).
Arts Bursary of the British School in Athens
Deadline: January 2015
An annual bursary for artists – ‘in the widest sense of the term’ – to spend time in Greece. Covers travel, maintenance and equipment up to £2,500.
2014-15 recipient: Alumnus Nathaniel Pimlott
2013-14 recipient: Alumnus Anna Ilsley
In 2013 Anna Ilsley was awarded a residency and £2,500 bursary by The British School in Athens. Here is an excerpt from Anna’s proposal and some words about her time there, written half way through her time in Athens:
"My starting points for research are the seers at Delphi in and around the onset of Christianity; the bare breasted women in Minoan culture and their influential cultural contrasts with mainland Greece and thirdly the poet Sappho and her relationship with Aphrodite on Lesbos. I want to focus my research on the female relationship with the prophetic, sex, displays of sexuality and love."
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| Anna Ilsley |
"I am working just on paper at the moment- A4 and A3, using acrylic inks and pens, I have been treating these drawings like paintings and using my sketchbook a lot to gather ideas. Greece is great! Especially after a month, my eyes are opening to things all the time, yet I feel as thought I've not even scratched the surface and I'm nearly half way through the residency! Three months is not long. Although I plan to be here until Christmas I can extend the residency if I want.
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| The studio space |
"I am working just on paper at the moment- A4 and A3, using acrylic inks and pens, I have been treating these drawings like paintings and using my sketchbook a lot to gather ideas. Greece is great! Especially after a month, my eyes are opening to things all the time, yet I feel as though I've not even scratched the surface and I'm nearly half way through the residency! Three months is not long. Although I plan to be here until Christmas I can extend the residency if I want.
Getting into a daily work routine has been essential and writing the blog is like keeping an online diary (you can visit Anna's blog here: http://annailsley.tumblr.com/ ). So I get my support as an artist that way and academically, the school has plenty of support available, from students/ library/ even the director is happy to discuss ideas and give advice."
Anna Ilsley, 29 October 2013
Baer Art Centre
Deadline: 1 February 2015
Website
The summer residency program in Baer, Iceland, is open to professionally established visual artists and architects. Emerging artists and architects of promise are also welcome to apply. Residencies are four weeks long. The setting is stunning. Accommodation and studio are funded, but artists must cover their own travel, insurance, materials, and food/ telephone etc expenses.
Selection is made by a rotating panel of one artist, one architect, and the art centre director.
Artists are expected to participate in a group project at the end of each residency session, to be shared with the art centre staff and the local community. They are also asked to donate a piece of artwork for the centre's permanent collection.
Application fee of US$50.
Castell Coch, Cardiff
Deadline: Monday 2 March 2015, 5pm
Cadw are announcing a call for artists for their first 2015 residency programme, which will be at Castell Coch, on the outskirts of Cardiff. The residency will host two artists for a period of six weeks, and provide a bursary of £3,000 per residency. Deadline for applications is Monday 2 March 2015 at 5pm. Interviews to follow on Thursday 19th March 2015 at Castell Coch. Full details
Yorkshire Artspace Castlegate Residency
Deadline: Friday 13th March 2015, 10am
Yorkshire Artspace has been running residencies since 2005. In 2015 the artist will be working in the Castlegate area of the city centre, linked to the opening of Yorkshire Artspace's new Exchange Place Studios. For an artist to research, explore and create work in response to the context of this area in flux, that enables people to actively engage, interact or participate.
30 day - 8 month residency span. £6,000 artist's fee. £1,500 materials/production budget. Additional budget for travel/accomodation and public engagement events/activities. Access to studio space and project/exhibition spaces.
Online application, no fee.
30 day - 8 month residency span. £6,000 artist's fee. £1,500 materials/production budget. Additional budget for travel/accomodation and public engagement events/activities. Access to studio space and project/exhibition spaces.
Online application, no fee.
Chinati, Texas
Deadline: 1 April 2015
The Chinati Foundation's Artist in Residence program was instituted in 1989 with the aim of supporting the development of artists of diverse ages, backgrounds, and disciplines. To date, the Chinati Foundation has hosted more than 125 artists from more than fifteen countries.The Artist in Residence program provides an opportunity for artists from around the world to work in a striking, natural environment. Exhibitions are often held at the conclusion of the residency.
The residencies are two months long and provide a furnished apartment on the museum's grounds and a studio in Marfa. Resident artists have unlimited access to Chinati's collection and archive, and the museum staff and interns are available to assist in securing materials and preparing exhibitions. A stipend of $1,000 is provided to assist with travel and art materials.
Application fee of $40.
Leverhume Trust Artist in Residence Grants
Deadline: 10 September 2015
Substantial grants to support the residency of an individual artist in a UK university or museum in order to foster a creative collaboration between the artist and the staff and/or students of that institution.
Florence Trust
Deadline: 1 June 2015
The Florence Trust offers 12 month studio residencies commencing in August each year for up to a 12 artists. Each artists gets 24-hour access to a studio within St Saviour’s, a neo-gothic church in Highbury, London. There are two annual exhibitions in January and July, with a full-colour catalogue and a text by an independent arts writer. Throughout the year they provide mentoring, including with visiting artists, writers and curators. There are peer-critiques, workshops, and exhibition projects. In the past, artists have joined the Trust at a pivotal stage in their careers and used the opportunity as a springboard to establish themselves in the London art scene are beyond.
Open to all artists internationally, including collaborations, and students who will graduate in 2015.
Studio rent is either £225 or £260 per calendar month. This is all-inclusive and covers all aspects of the programme. Artists will need to budget separately for their living costs. Many artists need to work part-time during their residency and this is not a problem as long as they continually use their studio.
Application fee of £10.
2014 – 15 resident artists include alumnus Kirsty Buchanan
Radio 2 Artist in Residence
Deadline: 5 June 2015
In association with digital arts website The Space, the BBC Radio 2 Artist-in-Residence will get a golden pass to attend Radio 2 events for a year, whether that's Cambridge Folk Festival, Proms in the Park or Friday Night is Music Night. In return, Radio 2 will ask them to create a minimum of four artistic responses across the year. You can work in any medium – you could be a poet, a sculptor, a painter, or a multi-media artist – but there will need to be a digital aspect to the presentation of the work you devise as the work will be showcased on the Radio 2 website, BBC Arts Online and The Space. Peter Blake is judging the 2015 applications. The Space will provide a bursary of £15,000 and will separately cover all materials and expenses up to a maximum budget of £20,000, plus mentoring.
Online application. Free to apply. |
Yaddo
Deadlines: 1 August 2015, 1 January 2016
Fully funded residency, open to professional artists from all nations and backgrounds in various media. Intended as an opportunity to work on a project or practice. They have a non-discrimination policy. Year-round residencies (closed September) of 2 - 8 weeks. 15 - 34 artists in residence at any one time. Artists are provided with a private bedroom and three meals a day, a private studio, and access to specialist photo, printmaking and welding studios.
Online applications.
Griffin Art Prize UK
Deadline: 31 July 2015
A six month residency in the Studio Building, 21 Evesham Street, London W11 4AJ, supported by Winsor & Newton, Liquitex and Conte a Paris. Culminating in a solo exhibition, accompanied by a catalogue. For emerging artists in painting and drawing. A long list of 20 artists is selected and showcased online. A short-list of 10 are exhibited at the Griffin Gallery. The winner is selected from these, by judges looking for 'innovation in painting and drawing and for the applicants' potential to benefit from the residency.'
In the first year it ran alumnus Eleanor Bedlow was exhibited in the shortlist.
Nina Stewart Artist Residency
Deadline: 2015, tba
A 6-month residency opportunity available to artists who have recently completed a postgraduate course in the UK. Accommodation and work space is provided rent-free in the South London Gallery's Outset Artists' Flat. A bursary of £5,000 towards living expenses and production costs. Mentoring and an exhibition with accompanying publication.
The Royal Society of British Artists: The Rome Scholarship
Deadline: tba
An annual award of a one month scholarship at the British School in Rome in July of each year. The main emphasis for this award is that the applicants ‘should demonstrate a high standard in draftsmanship’. Flights, accommodation and half board provided. Applicants need to be in their final year or recently graduated, and their ‘work needs to be figurative’. A shortlist of four candidates will be invited to an interview at the Mall Galleries and invited to display one work each at the Royal Society of British Artists’ Annual Exhibition at the Mall Galleries in March.
2014 shortlist (result tba): Alumnus Meg Buick
2013 shortlist: Alumnus Jenny Smith
2012 recipient: Alumnus Naomi Grant
A.I.R. Gallery Fellowship Program - NY Based Artists
Deadline: October
Applicants must be self-identified women who are US citizens / have a visa for the duration of their fellowship. Not exactly a residency -
Since 1993 the programme has supported underrepresented or emerging artists. It includes mentoring and professional development for six artists over a 12-month period in preparation for a solo show at A.I.R. Gallery. Plus a scheduled gallery exhibition, member artist liaison, and an additional stipend. Their goal is to provide need blind support to artists that may not be in a position to organize and fund a public exhibition of their work. A panel of outside curators, critics and established artists selects participating artists annually. Panelists are encouraged to arrange individual visits to the Fellows’ studios in preparation for their solo shows.
Online application,
Since 1993 the programme has supported underrepresented or emerging artists. It includes mentoring and professional development for six artists over a 12-month period in preparation for a solo show at A.I.R. Gallery. Plus a scheduled gallery exhibition, member artist liaison, and an additional stipend. Their goal is to provide need blind support to artists that may not be in a position to organize and fund a public exhibition of their work. A panel of outside curators, critics and established artists selects participating artists annually. Panelists are encouraged to arrange individual visits to the Fellows’ studios in preparation for their solo shows.
Online application,
RA Schools
Deadline: December
Not exactly a residency - A competitive and prestigious three-year scholarship contemporary art course (postgraduate diploma, MA level, like the Drawing Year). RA Schools offers 17 artists each year an intense three-year studio and critical programme, akin to an extended MA. Fully funded. ‘In an applicant we look first for evidence of a strong practice; second that the candidate is looking for evolution in their work and that their practice is not fixed; third that they have a desire and capacity to be critically engaged with their own work and that of others. We aim to put together a diverse group that represents the breadth of contemporary art practice.’
Recent graduates include Lynette Yiadom Boakye, nominated for the Turner Prize in 2013.
Open days in October.
Open days in October.
