Ailsa Mellon Bruce National Gallery of Art Sabbatical Fellowships

2023–2024

The Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts announces the Ailsa Mellon Bruce National Gallery of Art Sabbatical Fellowship, open to permanent members of the National Gallery of Art curatorial, conservation, education, and library senior staff. The fellowship, tenable during the award period of April 1, 2023, to August 31, 2024, provides for full-time independent research. The application deadline is November 15, 2022. Selection is by the Center’s Board of Advisors. 

The fellowships are reserved for qualified art historians, conservators, conservation scientists, educators, and librarians, who have worked at least five years in one of the departments of the National Gallery of Art and who have held the appropriate terminal degree in their field for at least five years. An equivalent record of professional accomplishment may fulfill the latter requirement.

The fellowships are intended to relieve members of the National Gallery’s curatorial, conservation, education, and library staff of their National Gallery responsibilities to pursue independent study, research, or publication not directly related to a National Gallery project. Fellows will be encouraged to spend their time away from National Gallery premises. The Center provides a maximum travel allowance of $8,000, based on need and prorated for the length of the term. As staff members of the National Gallery of Art, recipients will also continue to receive their normal salaries during the period of the fellowship.

The fellowship will be for a minimum of two months to a maximum of four months. The schedule of leave may be flexible to the degree that a fellowship may be taken in two periods of two months each within a given fellowship year. All fellowship applications and the periods and schedules of leave must be approved in advance by the department head or, where appropriate, the deputy director of the National Gallery of Art.

Candidates should submit an application form, available from the Center, and copies of two articles, essays, and/or book chapters. Two letters of support will also be required: one from the applicant’s supervisor or department head and one from another expert in the field. Past recipients of sabbatical fellowships may reapply five years after the completion of a fellowship.

Award Period: April 1, 2023–August 31, 2024

Application Deadline: November 15, 2022
We will begin accepting applications on August 15, 2022.

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