Organizer Information
Artadia is a national nonprofit organization founded in 1999 in San Francisco by art collector Christopher E. Vroom and a group of arts leaders and philanthropists who sought to strengthen financial and professional support for visual artists amid a decline in U.S. arts funding during the 1990s. Now headquartered in New York City, the organization identifies innovative visual artists and supports them through unrestricted, merit-based financial awards paired with access to a national network of curators, patrons, and fellow artists.
Since its founding, Artadia has distributed over $6 million in unrestricted funds to more than 440 visual artists across its program cities. Beyond the annual Awards program described below, Artadia has run special initiatives including the SEEN Award for women-identifying artists, an Artadia Fellowship supporting immigrant and refugee artists, and past partnerships with NADA Miami and Prospect New Orleans.
Title & Description
Artadia Awards Boston
The Artadia Awards are an annual, unrestricted, merit-based cash award program for contemporary visual artists, offered through open-call applications in seven U.S. program cities: Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, Atlanta, and Houston, plus a roving award with 21c Museum Hotels. Each city's application window is open for one month per year. A jury of curators reviews all applications, narrows the pool to six Finalists per city, and conducts virtual studio visits before designating three Awardees per cycle to receive unrestricted funds.
Categories
- Visual Arts
- Art
Eligibility
- Must be a contemporary visual artist making artwork for presentation in a contemporary art context (museum, galleries, arts non-profits, the public art realm, etc.)
- Artadia does not fund filmmakers making films for cinematic distribution, or choreographers whose work is presented outside a contemporary art context
- Must currently live and work within the eligible counties of the city applied to, and have resided there for at least two consecutive years prior to the application deadline
- Must not be currently enrolled in an art-related degree program, nor planning to enroll in one in the coming year
- Must not be related to Artadia staff or directors in any way
- Must never have received an award from Artadia (or its former name, The Art Council) of $10,000 or more; former Finalists remain eligible to reapply
- Applicants enrolled in a long-term artist residency program may only apply in the Award city where they permanently reside, and must be available for a 45-minute virtual studio visit if selected as a Finalist
- Applicants must be the sole conceptual author of the submitted work unless applying as a collaborative; collaborators sharing authorship must be clearly identified and credited
Program Benefits & Awards
- Three Awardees per city per cycle receive unrestricted funds of $15,000 each
- The Marciano Artadia Award (Los Angeles only) provides unrestricted funds of $25,000 to one artist
- Access to the Artadia Network, offering structured opportunities for professional connections and resource sharing
- A dedicated webpage on Artadia's online Artist Registry
- Honorariums provided to each Finalist not ultimately selected as an Awardee
Application Fee
None
How to Apply?
Online Application
Key Dates
- Application Deadline: 15 September 2026
Location
United States
Additional Details
- Review process: a first-round jury of three curators (including one locally based curator) reviews all applications and selects six Finalists per city
- A second jury — one juror carried over from round one plus one new juror — conducts 45-minute virtual studio visits with each Finalist
- The second-round jury designates three Awardees at its sole discretion; decisions are not detailed as appealable in the source
- Applicants may log in and out of the online application as many times as needed before the deadline
- During first-round review, submitted images and videos are reviewed one at a time, in succession
- Applicants have the option of submitting digital images and/or time-based media
- Applicants must read and acknowledge Artadia's organizational AI policy when submitting an application