Grants to Artists

Grants to Artists are administered by a confidential nomination and selection process. Applications and unsolicited nominations are not accepted. In addition to the below, please read the FAQs for more information.

FCA awards Grants to Artists in the following fields: dance, music/sound, performance art/theater, poetry, and the visual arts. Artists are suggested and selected by their peers in a two-stage process. Each year, FCA invites dozens of distinguished artists and arts professionals to serve as nominators and propose one exceptional individual, collective, or performing group whom they feel deserves and will benefit from an unrestricted $45,000 award. Nominators are selected by field, but are free to propose artists working in any of the five areas supported. They are asked to remain anonymous. A selection panel chooses grant recipients on the basis of the merit and imaginativeness of their work and the effect such recognition and support might have at this point in their careers.

Although most artists who receive support live and work in the United States, grants may be awarded internationally. The number of selections made in any of the five fields is determined by the strength of the candidates and FCA's resources in any given year. The grants are not designated for specific projects. Rather, they are intended to provide recipients with the financial means to engage in whatever artistic endeavors they wish to pursue, to research and develop ideas, embark on projects, and complete projects already under way. At the end of the year, artists are asked to describe how the grant was used.

The 2025 Grants to Artists awards are $45,000 each; learn more about the twenty-three 2025 Grants to Artists recipients. The participating Directors of FCA were joined in the grant selection process by creator and director of performance Mallory Catlett (2015 FCA Grantee); choreographer, director, and educator nora chipaumire (2016 FCA Grantee); poet and essayist Marcella Durand (2021 FCA C.D. Wright Awardee); curator and writer Allison Glenn; choreographer, dancer, and educator Mina Nishimura (2019 FCA Grantee); and composer and performer Nate Wooley (2016 FCA Grantee).

The following Grants to Artists awards are endowed or funded by artist foundations:

John Cage Award
Merce Cunningham Award
Viola Farber Award
Helen Frankenthaler Award for Painting
Roy Lichtenstein Award
Alvin Lucier Award for Music
Richard Pousette-Dart Award
Robert Rauschenberg Award
Dorothea Tanning Award
Cy Twombly Award for Poetry
C.D. Wright Award for Poetry