Fellowship Program

The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute is one of a small number of institutions in the United States that combines a public art museum with a complex of research and academic programs, including a major art history library. The Clark functions as an international center in both the academic and museum fields for research and discussion on the nature of art and its history.

Clark Fellowship

The Clark offers between fifteen and twenty Clark Fellowships each year, ranging in duration from six weeks to ten months. National and international scholars, critics, and museum professionals are welcome to propose projects that extend and enhance the understanding of the visual arts and their role in culture. Stipends are dependent on salary and sabbatical replacement needs. Housing in the Institute's Scholars' Residence, located across the street from the Clark, is also provided.

In addition to the classic Clark Fellowships discussed above, the Clark offers a number of special fellowships:

Beinecke Fellowship

The Beinecke Fellowship, new this year, is endowed by the devoted chair of the Research and Academic Program Trustee Committee, Frederick W. Beinecke, and is awarded to a noted senior scholar for one semester.

The Clark/Centre Allemand Fellowship

The Clark awards one joint fellowship co-sponsored by the Centre Allemand d’Histoire de l’art / Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte for a project centered on French art and culture. Jointly sponsored by the two institutions, the fellowship recognizes both the Clark’s close relationship with the Centre Allemand and its traditionally strong emphasis on French art and culture. This fellowship will enable a scholar to benefit from one semester in Paris and one semester in Williamstown, with the choice of the order of residence being left to the candidate. While in Williamstown, the scholar will be part of our residential scholars community; the Centre Allemand does not offer accommodations, but does pay a stipend, and will assist its fellow in finding suitable lodging in Paris.

This fellowship is designed to be of benefit to those needing both archival research time in France and the excellent general library and propitious conditions for writing that the Clark offers. The fellow will give public talks in both Williamstown and Paris and be a full part of the research communities in both locations.

Clark/Mellon Curatorial Fellowship

Clark/Mellon Curatorial Fellowships are annually given to museum curators, in either the summer or academic semesters, and provide them wtih both practical support and a forum for exchange with their academic counterparts.

The Clark/Oakley Humanities Fellowship

In conjunction with the Oakley Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences at Williams College, the Research and Academic Program at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute offers a fellowship for a scholar in the humanities whose work takes an interdisciplinary approach to some aspect of the visual. The selected fellow will have his or her office at the Oakley Center, be housed at the Clark scholars' residence, and participate fully in the rich intellectual life of both advanced research institutes. The preferred term of the fellowship is for one academic year, though applicants available for only one semester will also be considered.

Clark-Kress Fellowship in the Literature of Art

Funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, this fellowship is particularly directed to scholars whose work engages critically with the literature of art “before the era of art history” (i.e., before the formation of a discipline of art history in the mid-nineteenth century.) The Clark seeks applications whose focus might be theoretical or aesthetic treatises, anecdotes, histories, translations of texts, artists’ writings, or other material that might broadly be described as part of the literature of art or the pre-history of art history. Although the importance of the very act of uncovering and publishing such material to scholarship is obvious, the Clark-Kress fellowship is awarded to a scholar who is able to engage with it in such a way as to make its relevance and importance visible to the larger field of art history.

Applications are encouraged for work on texts in languages other than English. Scholars, however, must complete their applications in English and be comfortable explaining and discussing their material to the English-speaking community of fellows and researchers at the Clark.

Kress Summer Fellowship in Museum Education

The Clark reserves one summer fellowship for a senior museum educator who might benefit from six weeks’ contact with the resources of the Clark library, as well as the diverse international community of Clark visiting scholars. There is also the possibility of interaction with the staff of the Clark's education department and its Center for Education in the Visual Arts. The fellowship is intended for an ambitious and imaginative educator whose project explores critically the relationship of scholarship to the public understanding of art, or who seeks to explore new avenues and innovations in museum education, understood in its broadest sense. This project could involve, for example, work on conveying the ideas of a complex thematic exhibition to a wide public; making fresh and challenging scholarship in the history of art accessible to museum-goers; investigating the underlying critical commitments of exhibitions or collections; exploring and challenging the assumptions of museum education itself. The fellowship would be awarded on the same terms as other Clark summer fellowships, i.e., this is a six-week fellowship that occurs during July and August and comes with an office, accommodation, travel expenses, but no stipend.

About Fellowships

Clark Fellowships are open to academics, curators, and independent scholars whose projects deepen the knowledge, understanding, and interpretation of art and visual culture, broadly conceived. Candidates must already have a Ph.D. or equivalent professional experience. The Clark does not award pre-doctoral fellowships, and we should advise that given the intense competition for fellowships, we do not normally make awards to those who have received their Ph.D. within the last two years.

Fellows are furnished with offices in the library, which contains a collection of 200,000 books and 700 periodicals. A committed library staff meets the challenges of a rotating schedule of Fellows. The Institute's collections, its library, visual resources collection, and the Fellows program are housed together with the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art. The Clark is within walking distance of Williams College, its libraries, and its art museum. The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) is a ten-minute drive away.

All applicants must complete an application form (PDF). All materials must be received by November 1. Candidates will be notified about the action taken on their application around March 1. All application materials must be submitted in English. For more information, call 413 458 0469, or email Research and Academic Program.