AFNGA AusArt Fellowship
Study Level:
Graduate or Postgraduate research
Fields:
Fine arts, curatorial studies, art history, arts administration or conservation
Minimum Duration:
No minimum – course cannot be more than 75% complete at the time of the application
Application Submission Period:
Australia to USA: Jan 1 to Mar 31.
Established in 2012, the AusArt Fellowship offers emerging practitioners in the field of visual arts the opportunity to progress their studies at a university, educational institution or museum in the United States.
Comprising a one-off grant of US$30,000 and conferred annually, the Fellowship is open to visual artists, curators, art historians, administrators and conservators to study at a graduate or post-graduate level in the United States.
The AusArt Fellowship is made possible through the generous support of the Dr. Lee MacCormick Edwards Charitable Foundation and the American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia.
US Enrollment
Acceptance into a US educational institution for full-time study.
Citizenship
Australian citizen or permanent resident of Australia.
Budget
Budget for the research/study period must be for a maximum of US$30,000. The fellowships are intended to support part of the costs of one year of research/study in the US.
Support Material
CV, letters of support and examples of work are required.
Our Scholarship Partner
American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia
As Australia’s premier visual arts institution, the National Gallery of Australia exists to collect, preserve, promote and share art from around Australia and the world.
Located in the nation’s capital, Kamberri/Canberra, the National Gallery of Australia sits on the southern shore of Lake Burley Griffin, on the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples.
The National Gallery of Australia’s aim is to inspire all Australians. Central to that vision is the elevation of women artists and First Nations culture.
The national collection comprises more than 155,000 works of art and includes the world’s largest holdings of First Nations/Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art.

our scholars

Leon Zhan
2024 Scholar
Leon was born and raised in Noosa to Chinese immigrant parents and was immersed in cultural traditions, superstitions and generational conversations. His bi-cultural upbringing has heavily influenced his practice, and central to his work is the search for balance and harmony within the fluidity of cross-cultural hybridity. Through painting and sculpture, he addresses the subtleties and nuances inherent in the dance between Orient and Occident – finding solace in the grey-area of perpetual in-betweenness.

Ihab S Balla
2023 Scholar
Ihab S Balla is a visual artist and educator based in Australia. Across and against mediums, disciplines, and compositions, they are concerned with the anti-disciplinary, autoethnographic synthesis of ideas that contemplate, feel, and map liberatory possibilities. Balla works at the intersection of theory, science, black feminist pedagogy, and collaborative art-making to survey otherwise relational configurations. Read full story

Pippa Mott
2022 Scholar
For Australian curator, cultural producer and writer Pippa Mott, receiving the American Friends’ AusArt Scholarship has been instrumental in enabling her to complete an MA in the History of Art & Archaeology at the Institute of Fine Arts (IFA), New York University (NYU). The first year of Mott’s program was supported by scholarships from NYU and Fulbright Australia. 'However, my second year wasn’t funded,' says Mott. 'There was a big question mark hanging over it. Without the AusArt Scholarship I wouldn’t have been able to stay on in New York and finish my degree.' Read full story

Guy Grabowsky
2022 Scholar
Guy Grabowsky is a Melbourne-based artist who creates photographic works of art with and without a camera. Grabowsky graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, in 2018, and has since been curated into 11 group exhibitions. Delaying his scholarship by one year due to the global pandemic, he commenced an MFA in Photography at The New School / Parsons School of Design in August 2022.

Kai Wasikowski
2020 Scholar
Living and working in Sydney on Gadigal land, visual artist Kai Wasikowski creates photographic images, sculpture and installations that pose questions about the psychological effects of environmental and technological change. Kai holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts (First Class Honours with University Medal) from Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. He embarked on a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence, Rhode Island in 2021 and will graduate later this year. Read full story

Nicholas Smith
2019 Scholar
Nicholas Smith is a Melbourne-based visual artist who has held several solo exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney. Smith’s work can be found in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne, and he has been curated into the 2023 iteration of The National 4: New Australian Art at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Sydney. He completed a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Art at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California. Read full story

Caroline Garcia
2018 Scholar
Caroline Garcia is a Sydney-born interdisciplinary artist whose practice encompasses video art and live performance. She has exhibited and performed widely throughout Australia and internationally. Read full story

Nicholas Croggon
2017 Scholar
Art historian and critic Nicholas Croggon is currently completing his PhD in art history at Columbia University in New York. Graduating with first-class honours in art history and law from the University of Melbourne, he worked as a lawyer for four years before embarking on his PhD. Croggon is the co-founder and co-editor of Discipline, an Australian contemporary art journal, and is also the editor of emaj, an online art history journal. Read full story

Mark Hilton
2016 Scholar
Melbourne-born artist Mark Hilton works across sculpture, painting and drawing. He completed a residency at the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York, and has exhibited widely across Australia as well as in Italy, Malaysia and the US. Read full story



Aaron Cooper
2014 Scholar
Aaron Cooper is an interdisciplinary artist who works across sculpture, installation and photography. His practice investigates social, spatial and urban conditions, taking into account artistic as well as architectural points-of-view. Cooper has received recognition from the Australia Council for the Arts, Bill Perrin Sculpture Foundry Prize, Ironside Studios Award and Victoria Harbour Young Artists Initiative. Read full story

Jessie English
2013 Scholar
Australian-born, New York-based photographer and visual artist Jessie English uses the medium of photography to explore entropy, climate change and the nature of public and private memory. She has exhibited her photomedia and installation works in Sydney, Berlin, Malmo, New York, and London. Jessie holds an undergraduate degree in Visual Arts from Sydney College of the Arts, and completed a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) at The New School / Parsons School of Design in New York in 2015. Read full story

Caitlin Breare
2012 Scholar
Caitlin Breare completed a Masters of Art History and Archaeology and an Advanced Certificate in Conservation at the Institute of Fine Arts (IFA), New York University (NYU). This double degree took four years – and the latter is now awarded as a Master of Conservation. Breare is now Conservator of Paintings at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne. Read full story
Inquiries
To make inquiries about these scholarships please contact our Education Team at [email protected] | +1 212 338 6860 x 205.