A committee of staff and external advisors will select six Fellows to engage the Museum and its collections from July 1–31, 2025, in Denver, CO.

“The Institute Residential Fellowship seeks to create an environment enabling individual thought leaders to learn from Still’s commitment to freedom and his drive to create something entirely new and necessary,” said Joyce Tsai, CSM director. “We’re excited to bring people from afar to experience the wonder and joy of being at the Still. In 2024, we launched the Institute Residential Fellowship pilot program and look forward to expanding it in its second year. We encourage all qualified candidates to apply.”

For more information or to apply, visit clyffordstillmuseum.org/institute. Applications are due by January 31, 2025. The Museum will offer fellowships in the following areas:

• Studio Art – The Fellow will pursue studio practice that would benefit from research on and engagement with CSM’s collection and/or archives.
• Art History or Criticism – The Fellow will deeply study CSM’s collections and archives to illuminate the historical and philosophical stakes of Still’s art and writings, to bring his work in vibrant conversation with the work of his peers as well as those of subsequent generations, and/or find critical resonance between his work and that of contemporary artists.
• Early Childhood Education – The Fellow will develop projects that would benefit from and contribute to the practices in early childhood education pursued by the Learning and Engagement team at CSM. Proposed projects would advance the development of new possibilities at the intersections of art museums, education, and early learning.
• Social Enterprise – The Fellow will thoroughly investigate financial frameworks suitable for nonprofits and social enterprises, such as our own, that support the freedom of innovation.

Each of the selected Fellows will receive an honorarium, round-trip economy class travel to and from Denver, housing in Denver during the program, and workspace appropriate to the proposed project. CSM will accommodate the accessibility needs of all Fellows. The Fellows will also participate in a public roundtable discussion towards the end of the program.

“As stewards of a collection that belongs to our community, we can think about what museums can become,” said Tsai. “Instead of holding on to our collections and showing exhibitions, we asked ourselves how we bring people in to animate this material from many perspectives. The program allows for an interdisciplinary focus on one body of work from various perspectives. We are fortunate to have a talented Advisory Board helping select the Fellows.”

The Institute Advisory Board includes experts in art, education, and enterprise. The members include Harry Cooper, Bunny Mellon Curator of Modern Art, National Gallery of Art; Bridget Cooks, Professor of African American Studies and Art History, UC Irvine; Odili Odita, Artist; Cristina Gillanders, Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education, School of Education and Human Development, University of Colorado, Denver; Sharon Shaffer, Founding Director, Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center, Routledge series editor, Global Perspectives on Children in Museums; Aaron Duke, Product Leader & Advisor; Claude Grunitzky, CEO and Managing Partner, Equity Alliance; and Dan Wang, Lambert Family Professor of Social Enterprise and Sociology at Columbia Business School and Co-Director of the Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change.

The Deborah Buck Foundation and MetrixIQ support the Clyfford Still Museum Institute Residential Fellowship Program.