Applications for Berkshire Art Center’s 2024 Berkshire Artist Residency Now Open!
Berkshire Art Center’s new Berkshire Artist Residency Program logo.
(Updated March 19, 2024)
Berkshire Art Center is now accepting applications for its 2024 Berkshire Artist Residency Program. This year, Berkshire-based artists can apply for a summer residency at three local institutions - The Red Lion Inn, Chesterwood, and now, Ventfort Hall. A total of five selected artists will spend three months creating work inspired by the history, landscape, culture, and architecture of those institutions.
Since 2012, Berkshire Art Center has coordinated Artist Residencies that pair local visual artists with cultural institutions and historic landmarks across the Berkshires. The heart of the Berkshire Artist Residency is to give artists the opportunity to create new work inspired by their home county. This tailored program provides visual artists with exclusive access to world-class cultural facilities to develop work that intertwines with the fabric of our region.
Berkshire Art Center recognizes the important outlet and invaluable opportunity an artist residency provides. The extended length and flexible hours of the program give artists, who might not have the luxury to attend residencies away from home for long periods of time, the ability to further their career and create art in a way that compliments their current practice. The program is supported in part by grants from the Stockbridge Cultural Council and Lenox Cultural Council, local agencies which are supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.
The Summer 2024 program begins on Memorial Day, May 27, and runs through Labor Day, September 2. Artists selected receive access to the buildings and grounds of their site and support for the development, creation, and exhibition of their work. Each artist will receive an honorarium, the opportunity to give an Artist Talk, invitation to teach a course or workshop through Berkshire Art Center, and invitations to special events held at their site. Additional benefits, such as meal stipends and studio space, are site specific. Each residency closes with a reception and exhibition of the artist’s work.
Summer 2024 Residency Sites
The Red Lion Inn, now celebrating its seventh year as a Berkshire Artist Residency site, is an iconic landmark located in Stockbridge, MA, in the heart of the Berkshires. The inn’s distinctive warmth and character express timeless yet vibrant tradition. In addition to the Main Inn, the historic campus is home to Maple Glen, a 17-room guesthouse that features an unexpected twist on modern country. A number of unique guest houses are sprinkled throughout The Red Lion Inn Village, including a turn-of-the-century Firehouse. Artists will be selected after two rounds of review.
Chesterwood, a site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is the former summer home, studio, and gardens of America’s foremost public sculptor, Daniel Chester French (1850-1931). French is best known for his Minute Man in Concord, MA and the seated figure of Abraham Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. In his lifetime, however, he created over 100 public memorials and monuments across the country. Chesterwood has hosted contemporary artists since the 1970s and has been a participant in Berkshire Art Center’s residency program for the past 3 years, inviting artists to be inspired by the work of Daniel Chester French and the estate’s natural and built environment with views of the Berkshire hills in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
For 2024, Chesterwood is piloting an expanded partnership with Berkshire Art Center by providing three newly created studio suites on the second floor of the historic residence. In this inaugural year, no overnight accommodations are provided although artists will have security-controlled access to their studios 24/7 during the residency. Artists must be able to work on site in a medium that does not require special equipment/facilities such as a foundry, darkroom, kiln, open flames, or flammable liquids. Sculptors and visual artists in all mediums, including landscape architects and architects, are encouraged to apply. Three artists will be selected. The Chesterwood residency begins June 1.
Ventfort Hall, built by George and Sarah Morgan as their summer home, is an imposing Jacobean Revival mansion that typifies the Gilded Age in Lenox. Sarah, the sister of J. Pierpont Morgan, purchased the property in 1891, and hired Rotch & Tilden, prominent Boston architects, to design the house. In 1949, Jewish couple Bruno and Claire Aron purchased the abandoned Ventfort Hall property with the vision of transforming it into Festival House. In 1950, Festival House officially opened its doors as an inclusive and artistic retreat, the first in the region welcoming people who were racially and religiously marginalized. Musicians, artists, dancers, and actors stayed and performed at Festival House, including folk musician Pete Seeger, playwright Lorraine Hansberry, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, and singer Odetta. Festival House closed its doors in 1961, but the impact it made on progressing diversity and accessibility in the Berkshires is alive and well today in Ventfort Hall's leadership, staff, and mission. The Ventfort Hall Artist Residency gives high priority to artists who identify with marginalized communities in our region.
Applications are due March 21 for The Red Lion Inn and Chesterwood. Applications for Ventfort Hall are due March 28. For more information, please visit our website at: https://www.berkshireartcenter.org/berkshire-artist-residency-apply