About Us
Artists Futures Fund is an independent charity, founded in 1810, and formerly known as the Artists’ Benevolent Fund.
Through our annual Artist Fellowship programme, we award grants to contemporary artists who are facing economic, social, cultural or health barriers that would otherwise prevent them from undertaking their creative practice and advancing their career.
Our Vision
Artists Futures Fund believes that difference and/or disadvantage of any form should never act as a barrier to creative development and artistic expression.
Participation in art and culture enriches people’s lives. Through art we can express ourselves, share our perspectives on our world and our place within it and gain a greater understanding of the lives of others.
Our Vision is to enrich and diversify the UK’s cultural landscape. We do this by providing financial support, mentoring and networking opportunities for contemporary artists who face wide-ranging challenges so that they can pursue their own artistic futures.
Our Values
As a charitable institution committed to supporting individual artists, Artists Futures Fund strives to:
Listen, learn and respond to artists’ needs.
Be inclusive and accessible.
Support outstanding, distinctive, visionary artists from diverse backgrounds.
Embrace and promote equality and diversity across all that we do and say.
Be an engine for good, creating societal benefits through all that we do.
Be accountable to our beneficiaries and our board.
Improve environmental sustainability.
Be a responsible investor and raiser of funds.
Acrylic painting (2022) by Anne Knight, one of the
recipients of our Step Change Fellowship, 2020–21
Photo: Anne Knight
“I have the freedom to research, to experiment, and to push the boundaries of what I can do without financial worry.”Sarah Kirk ceramicist Step Change Fellow, 2021–22
Our Team
Artists Futures Fund is a registered charity and is governed by a Board of Trustees. The organisation is managed by a Director and Operations Manager who work remotely and in partnership with our co-delivery Programme Partners.
Olivia Mason
Director
Helen Felcey
Operations Manager
Board of Trustees
Lisa Gee
Chair / Trustee
Lisa has over 30 years’ experience of working in the visual arts and is the Director of The Harley Foundation and Gallery, Nottinghamshire. The Harley’s mission is to develop spaces where creativity can flourish. It funds and manages two award-winning galleries and 22 subsidised studios for artists and makers. Lisa is a Liveryman of the Goldsmiths Company. She was the Chair of The Mighty Creatives from 2009–15, a bridge organisation funded by Arts Council England to help young people access art and culture.
Barney Hare-Duke
Trustee
Barney was the Artistic Director of the British Ceramics Biennial (BCB) in Stoke-on-Trent, a position he held from inception in 2009. He stepped down from this position at the end of 2020. Starting his career as a potter, Barney has accumulated over 40 years’ experience in the arts working as an artist, project manager, arts development officer, curator and consultant.
Matthew Collins
Trustee
Matthew is an artist based in London, working with textiles, print and text. He has participated in projects at Backlit Gallery, Nottingham; The Royal Standard, Liverpool; Kunstpodium-T, Tilburg and Spanish City, Whitley Bay. He has also contributed to publications including A Queer Anthology of Rage (Pilot Press, 2018).
Duncan Hooson
Trustee
Duncan is an Artist, Educator and Author. He has over 30 years’ experience in delivering a wide range of artist-in-residence projects. He is Reader in Socially Engaged Ceramics and Stage 1 leader on the BA Ceramic Design course at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. He is founder and co-director of Clayground Collective, a socially engaged practice. Over 18 years, Clayground has created projects for more than 150,000 people across the UK. Duncan has co-authored several acclaimed publications in the ceramic design field.
Marlene Johnson
Trustee
Marlene spent a large part of her career in the publishing industry, most recently as Managing Director of Hachette Children’s Books, working with the cream of British illustrators and authors. Prior to that, she held senior roles in Design Consultancy and Advertising. She now operates as a board member and consultant in the creative and educational sectors.
Michael Wormack
Trustee
Michael is an art dealer, advisor, and curator. He has over 20 years experience in galleries and asset lenders, working with fine art, contemporary craft, jewellery, and fine assets. He is the founder and director of Felstead Art; an art gallery curating contemporary exhibitions in corporate spaces; Felstead Framing, a conservation picture framers; Vaas Virtu, a fine asset advisory; and the East London Art Society, a membership organisation supporting art and artists in East London.
Aurelia Kassatly
Trustee
Aurelia is Head of Business Performance at the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF). In this role, she supports the Managing Director on strategy development, implementing learning and development programmes for the organisation, risk management and other operations and governance-related matters. Aurelia has worked at CAF for six years, starting out there as a philanthropy advisor to HNW donors. Prior to this, Aurelia worked in Beijing for a US-based think tank. She is passionate about the visual arts and design and in her free time volunteers at Orleans House Gallery, a contemporary art gallery in Richmond, run by the borough.
Detail of our Royal Charter privy seal (1827)
at the London Metropolitan Archives
Photo: Des Lloyd Behari
History
Founded in 1810, incorporated by Royal Charter in 1827, the Fund is formally named as the ‘The Society for the Management and Distribution of The Artists Fund’. More recently, the charity was known as the ‘Artists’ Benevolent Fund’.
Further information about the history of the charity can be gained through the archives which have been deposited at the London Metropolitan Archives.
In 2024, the Board of Trustees took the decision to change the working name of the charity to Artists Futures Fund.
Today, the work of the Fund reflects the changes in the art world that have happened since the beginning of the 19th century. Its objectives were re-defined by the Trustees as being ‘a charity that supports visual artists of all kinds’.