This new partnership between Freelands Foundation and Art Fund offers grants of up to £50,000 for museums to acquire contemporary art and increase public access to work by women artists in the UK.
The annual Freelands Award was established in 2016 to enable an arts organisation outside London to present an exhibition, including significant new work, by a mid-career woman artist who may not yet have received the public recognition that their work deserves. Winning artists are Jacqueline Donachie (with Fruitmarket Gallery, 2016), Lis Rhodes (with Nottingham Contemporary, 2017), Veronica Ryan (with Spike Island, 2018), Hannah Starkey (with Hepworth Wakefield, 2019) and Ingrid Pollard (with MK Gallery, 2020).
The Freelands Art Fund Acquisition enables museums and public collections to acquire work by award-winning women artists. Through bolstering contemporary collections in the UK, this initiative increases public access to work by women artists, and brokers new relationships between artists, organisations, museums and their audiences.
Following the acquisition of a key work by the first Freelands Award 2016 winner Jacqueline Donachie to a major public collection, this partnership will support the acquisition of works by subsequent and future winning artists from 2017 onwards.
We are launching an open call for museums and public collections interested in acquiring work by either or both of these two artists:
We will consider applications from public museums, galleries, historic houses, libraries and archives based anywhere in the UK that are:
You can submit your expression of interest through your My Art Fund account.
Applicants are asked to specify which artist’s work they want to acquire.
Applicants can submit a separate expression of interest for each artist. However, a museum can only be successful with one artist.
Museums can consider acquiring any existing work by the artist, including but not limited to works exhibited at the award exhibition.
Applicants can acquire more than one work, as long as their proposal remains within the allocated budget (circa £50,000 per artist). Should a work exceed these financial parameters, we are open to discussing how this can be supported.
These acquisitions are made possible with the support of Freelands Foundation.
You are encouraged to contact the Programmes team to discuss your potential project before submitting an application.
Please contact:
Robert Dingle, programme partnerships manager
020 7225 4871
rdingle@artfund.org
To submit your expression of interest, log in to My Art Fund.
You must be registered as a professional user.
If you already have a My Art Fund account but are not registered as a professional user, you can add your professional details when logged in.
If you require application forms in an alternative format, please contact the Programmes team.