The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Pew Fellowships in the Arts?
Pew Fellowships in the Arts (PFA), a program of the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, was established in 1991 by The Pew Charitable Trusts to provide financial support to individual artists of exemplary talent working in the Philadelphia region in a wide variety of artistic disciplines. The awards are paid directly to artists, allowing them the opportunity to focus intensely on their work. Fellowships may be awarded to artists at any stage of their career development and to artists working within many different aesthetics and traditions.

How many fellowships are awarded each year?
Up to 12.

What is the amount of the Pew Fellowships in the Arts awards?
$60,000, which can be received in a single year or spread over two years.

What kind of artists are you looking to support?
PFA supports artists of exemplary talent for whom the fellowship will have the potential to significantly impact and advance their work. Artists may be at any stage of their career development and working in a wide range of aesthetics and traditions.

How do I apply for a Pew Fellowship in the Arts?
The eligibility requirements and application process changed beginning in the 2010 award cycle. To be invited to apply, an artist first must be nominated.

Who is eligible for a fellowship?
Beginning in the 2010 award cycle, originating artists engaged in the following areas of practice may be nominated to apply (see following question regarding application). These include:

Architecture and design (including fashion, landscape, graphic and industrial design)
Craft
Choreography
Folk and Traditional Arts
Literature (including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry)
Media (including film, screenwriting, video, audio, radio and web-based work)
Multi-media
Music composition
Playwriting
Performance Art
Theater
Visual arts
Multidisciplinary or cross-disciplinary work

Past or current Pew Fellows are not eligible to be nominated for a fellowship.

How does the nomination process work?
Thirty nominators with a deep knowledge of artists working in this region and representing a wide range of expertise and experience are identified by PFA in consultation with an advisory group. Responding to specific criteria (see criteria listed below) outlined by PFA, the nominators are each asked to recommend two artists, for a total of up to 60 artists, to be invited to apply for a fellowship. The nominators will remain anonymous to ensure the integrity of the process; however, the substance of their recommendations will become part of the material later reviewed along with the artist’s application to the program.

If I am nominated, what happens next?
Each nominated artist will be notified by PFA of his or her nomination and be formally invited to apply for a fellowship. Artists fill out an application and submit support materials as appropriate to their work. Once all of the nominated artists have completed and submitted their applications, the selection process follows a two-tiered review process of evaluation by field experts from outside the region and final selection of Pew Fellows by an interdisciplinary panel, also composed of arts experts from outside the region. (To read the Program Overview, please click here.)

What are the criteria by which artists will be nominated, evaluated and selected?
The following criteria are used to evaluate artists’ applications.

Artistic excellence

Evidence of serious commitment to their practice and the ability to use Pew support effectively

Impact of the fellowship on the artist

If I am selected to receive a fellowship, how will I be notified?
All artists who applied are notified by mail, simultaneously, of their application status and the panelists’ final decisions. For the 2010 cycle, fellowship awards will be announced in late September 2010. Names of panelists and evaluators are disclosed at the same time as the fellowship results. Names of nominators will remain confidential.

After a successful 18-year history, why has PFA changed its selection process?
PFA believes that the changes benefit artists in the following ways:

Artists working in any discipline or across multiple disciplines can be invited to apply in any given year.
The impact of the monetary award to each fellow will be significantly enhanced by robust professional- and career-development support.
The new process will provide a more thoughtful and thorough cumulative assessment of the applicants’ work at each step of the process, ultimately leading to better-informed decision making in the selection of fellows.
Prior to these changes, in order to give each of up to 400 applications its due, PFA focused a disproportionate amount of staff expertise and resources on administering the application process. With this change, PFA is able to apply its resources and its staff expertise directly to providing robust professional-development support to the fellows in ways that respond to their individual needs, which adds considerable value to the substantial cash award. (To read the Program Overview, please click here.)

Why can’t we know who the nominators are?
The anonymity of the nominators helps to assure the integrity of the process.

Will PFA refer artists to the nominators?
No. Artists will not be referred to nominators. The nominators themselves will each name two artists who, in their opinion, are producing outstanding work worthy of a Pew Fellowship in the Arts.

Can someone apply to be a nominator?
No. Nominators are chosen by PFA in consultation with a group of advisers. They will come from a highly qualified and knowledgeable community of curators, directors, presenters, writers, and artists, among others. No one will be chosen who would have a financial or personal incentive to nominate one artist over another, and nominators will sign a stringent code-of-ethics and conflict-of-interest statement.

Isn’t this process less democratic than the open call you used to have?
PFA’s primary mission has always been to support artists of exemplary talent in the region. The shift from an open-application to a nomination process ensures that the application-review process can consider the full breadth of an applicant’s body of work, and is able to accommodate applications from the region’s most promising artists, regardless of artistic discipline, in any given year.

Are the nominators’ comments used as part of the selection process?
Yes. Nomination narratives are read by evaluators and panelists, with the nominators’ names deleted. While nominated artists may reveal their candidacy at any point, nominators, evaluators, panelists and the PFA staff are expected to keep the artists’ names confidential. The information contained in the nominating statements and the applications is read only by the evaluators, panelists and PFA staff.

What are the artistic disciplines that Pew Fellowships in the Arts reviews?
Beginning in the 2010 award cycle, originating artists engaged in any of the following areas of practice may apply:

Architecture and design (including fashion, landscape, graphic and industrial design)
Craft
Choreography
Folk and Traditional Arts
Literature (including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry)
Media (including film, screenwriting, video, audio, radio and web-based work)
Multi-media
Music composition
Playwriting
Performance Art
Theater
Visual arts
Multidisciplinary or cross-disciplinary work

Past or current Pew Fellows are not eligible to be nominated for a fellowship.

Are there certain disciplines or types of work the nominators will be looking for?
No. Unlike in years past, originating artists engaged in any of the previously listed areas of practice and/or multi-media disciplines will be considered.

How are evaluators and panelists chosen?
Recommendations for potential evaluators and panelists come from many sources including past panelists, colleagues at arts and cultural organizations around the region and nation, and suggestions from practicing artists. All potential evaluators and panelists must be practicing, knowledgable artists or arts professionals including curators, presenters, editors, etc. from outside of the Philadelphia area.

When selecting evaluators and panel members, PFA takes into consideration age, gender, expertise and experience, ethnicity and geography to put together a well-balanced group. The ultimate selection of evaluators and panel members is at the discretion of the PFA Director.

What is the award calendar?
The calendar for the first year of implementation of the new process is found below.

Nominations are received by PFA January 29, 2010
Invitations to apply are sent to artists the last week of February 2010
Application deadline is Monday, April 19, 2010 at 5:00 p.m.
Notification to applicants, the new fellows and award announcement are in late September. All artists are notified by mail, simultaneously, of their application status. Names of panelists and evaluators are disclosed at the same time as the fellowship results. Names of nominators will remain confidential, for the reasons cited previously.

After this first year, the program calendar will return to its normal schedule for the 2011 award cycle.