United States Artists Reveals List of 2025 Fellows

 United States Artists has announced the 2025 USA Fellows, a cohort of 50 artists and collectives from 10 creative disciplines. Honoring the contributions to their respective communities and the broader culture of the nation, each awardee will receive a $50,000 unrestricted cash award. Additionally, the Fellows will receive access to a variety of professional services and field resources allowing for a deepened impact on their practice and supporting their essential roles in society.

The USA Fellowship recognizes a broad diversity of regions and mediums, awarding artists across the nation for their groundbreaking artistic visions and unique perspectives within their field. The fellowship is awarded through a year-long peer-led selection process in the disciplines of Architecture & Design, Craft, Dance, Film, Media, Music, Theater & Performance, Traditional Arts, Visual Art, and Writing. The 2025 USA Fellowship includes 50 artists and collectives across 10 disciplines in 21 US states, spanning the most nascent to mature stages of careers.

Meet the fellows here.

While awarded within 10 distinct disciplines, the 2025 USA Fellows push boundaries across disciplines, identities, and definitions, demonstrating boundless explorations of creativity and innovation throughout their multidisciplinary practices. Deeply rooted in notions of origin and belonging, the 2025 cohort examines a breadth of lived experiences and cultural histories, engaging their communities in dialogues both past and present while charting paths for their collective futures.

“We are honored to announce the 2025 USA Fellowship with this wonderfully skilled and multifaceted group of Fellows,” says Judilee Reed, President and CEO of United States Artists. “Much like this cohort, our support through the USA Fellowship is enduring and manifold, extending beyond a momentary and monetary contribution to establish a durable and sustainable relationship that artists may draw on at each stage of their careers.”

Based across the United States, this year’s cohort has the distinction of representing 4 native Hawaiian and 12 Indigenous artists and collaboratives, making 2025 one of USA’s most highly indexed for representation of identities that precede constitutional nationality. Countering historically rigid definitions of artistic achievement, the 2025 USA Fellowship platforms fellows with collaborative and colloquial practices in disciplines such as Craft, Traditional Arts, and Writing, whose work demonstrates the full capacity of cultural production. Foregrounding the progressive shift toward mutual aid and self-generated artist economies, the 2025 USA Fellowship awards three collaboratives that articulate the importance of artistic partnership and equity in social practice.

USA Fellows are selected based on their groundbreaking artistic visions, unique perspectives within their fields, and evident potential for the award to make a significant impact in their practices and lives. Artists are annually nominated to apply by a rotating committee of arts professionals from across the United States, with applications subsequently reviewed by discipline-specific panels. Demonstrating artists’ unique ability to affect the cultural landscape at any stage in their career, nearly a quarter of this year’s cohort are artists over 50, while the Fellowship’s youngest first-time nominee is in their 20s. Embracing the evolving ecosystem of arts funding, the USA Fellowship fosters durable relationships with artists that transcend beyond each cycle of funding.

“As we approach our 20th anniversary, the USA Fellowship takes an increasingly significant role in how we view the arts funding landscape,” says Ed Henry, United States Artists Board Chair. “In addition to being an exceptional group of artists and practitioners, this year’s cohort of Fellows manifest the many ways in which USA, and the broader art world, consider the support of artists – at all stages of their career, in all areas of their lives, and during all moments in our shared cultural history.”

Past awardees include photographer and performance artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons (2024), choreographer and tap dancer Ayodele Casel (2023), musician and composer Laura Ortman (2022), creative composer and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith (2021), painter and visual artist Howardena Pindell (2020), dancer and choreographer Alice Sheppard (2019), poet Claudia Rankine (2016), potter Roberto Lugo (2016), writer Teju Cole (2015), filmmaker Barry Jenkins (2012), documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras (2010), fashion designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte (2009), multidisciplinary artist Martha Rosler (2008), and multimedia artist Paul Chan (2007).

Launched in 2006, the USA Fellowship is United States Artists’ flagship program, through which it has distributed over $41 million to date to more than 1,000 creative practitioners. As an unrestricted award, the USA Fellowship embodies the organization’s commitment to unconditional support of artists, giving awardees the agency to allocate the funds however they choose, whether it be towards expanding their practices, paying rent, acquiring healthcare, or investing in their communities. Given the scale and breadth of the program, USA engages with a plurality of creative communities across the United States, going beyond conventional art world centers and embracing often overlooked mediums and approaches.

In addition to the $50,000 cash award, Fellows will additionally have access to financial planning services and grant writing assistance over the course of the next year. These accompanying resources reflect USA’s agility in addressing artists’ evolving needs, being in constant dialogue with artists on how their practices and livelihoods can be most effectively supported.

In addition to direct support of artists and cultural practitioners, USA is a key advisor and partner within arts philanthropy, working with foundations, philanthropists, and other field leaders to conduct research, design programs, and administer funds in response to their mission and the needs of artists. Partners have included the Center for Art, Research and Alliances (CARA), Ford Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation, Mellon Foundation, and others. In 2020, USA was one of the core organizers of Artist Relief, an emergency, coalition-led initiative that supported artists financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which distributed more than $23.4 million in emergency grants to 4,682 artists over 15 months.

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