Welcome to the CCF Fellowship for Visual Artists

Great art lights a spark. It illuminates the beauty and struggle of the world around us, warms our souls, nourishes our communities, and ignites change. As the foundation for Los Angeles County, we are dedicated to amplifying and empowering the incredible and diverse voices of Angelenos.

For more than a century, the California Community Foundation (CCF) has worked to improve the lives of L.A. residents. Every day, we witness the power of the arts to explore, unite and transform. We believe that everyone benefits when artists can pursue their passions and we understand how important it is to discover and support artists in the creative community.

The CCF Fellowship for Visual Artists was initiated in 1988 through a gift from the J. Paul Getty Trust to create a Fund for Visual Artists to recognize the outstanding talent of Los Angeles-based visual artists and arts organizations. Over the last 34 years, the Foundation has supported more than $3 million in unrestricted funds to more than 300 artists. This effort has also been supported through the generosity of the J. Paul Getty Trust Fund for the Visual Arts, the Brody Arts Fund, the T.M. and R.W. Brown Fund, the Jennie Strong Memorial Fund, the Joan Palevsky Endowment for the Future of Los Angeles, the Rose Anne Rice Charitable Fund and other CCF funds.

The CCF Fellowship for Visual Artists program continues to evolve and respond to the community of artists it serves. Beginning this year, all recipients will receive a $40,000 unrestricted grant regardless of career level. The unrestricted nature of the award is intentional. We know that unrestricted funds allow artists the time and space to do what they do best–create. In addition, recipients also receive networking and professional development assistance.

We invite you to view the site and see the incredible work of current and past recipients. These images are just a sample of the depth and scope of the diverse talent of these artists. We are proud to celebrate and share their work with you.

Antonia Hernandez
President & CEO, California Community Foundation

For over three decades, the Getty Foundation has provided grants that support the greater understanding and preservation of the visual arts in Los Angeles and around the world. From the beginning, our own history has been closely connected to the California Community Foundation through the Fellowship for Visual Artists. In the fall of 1984, the Getty’s parent organization, the J. Paul Getty Trust, announced a three-year program of major gifts to cultural and educational institutions in our home region. The culminating gift of this program was an endowment grant to the California Community Foundation in 1987 to establish the J. Paul Getty Trust Fund for the Visual Arts. Over the past thirty-five years of our partnership, the commitment of both organizations to strengthen the artistic traditions of our local communities has remained strong.

During this time one of Getty’s most visible contributions to the arts in our home city has been the Pacific Standard Time (PST) initiatives. In 2024 we will open the latest iteration of this region-wide collaboration with exhibitions and public programs devoted to the intersections of art and science presented by 45 partner organizations. As we have seen with its predecessors, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA and Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980, the next PST is sure to engage numerous artists from our local community, including those who have benefited from CCF fellowships.

Another local commitment is our Getty Marrow Undergraduate Internship program, which for 30 years has encouraged greater diversity in museums and visual arts organizations across LA County by offering more than 100 paid internships each summer for students of underrepresented backgrounds to gain experience working in the arts.

Most recently we partnered with CCF and a consortium of LA and national funders to support local cultural institutions and visual artists through the pandemic. The LA Arts Recovery Fund, initiated by Getty and administered by CCF, has already delivered more than $36.1 million in recovery funding to small and mid-sized arts organizations impacted by COVID-19. These institutions make our arts sector one of the most diverse, vibrant, and innovative creative communities in the nation, and the Fund is helping them stabilize and re-envision their futures. We also took action to support artists, working with CCF to repurpose the Fellowship for Visual Artists and partnering with three local artist-endowed foundations to distribute $700,000 in relief funding to 400 visual artists.

Getty remains a proud partner with CCF in supporting artists and cultural organizations in our communities. The pandemic has reminded us all that the arts are a fundamental source of expression, healing, and critical thinking. We look forward to celebrating a new cohort of fellows this year.

Joan Weinstein
Director, Getty Foundation