Open calls and residencies
Opportunities for artists across Europe: open calls, residencies, awards and grants. Every listing carries its deadline, whether there is a fee, and the source it was checked against.
Get the calls closing next, every other Tuesday.
Delfina Foundation x Gulbenkian Residency 2027
A three-month London residency at Delfina Foundation for visual artists from Portugal and the Portuguese-speaking African nations. Open application, no nomination and no gallery needed.
ROI Annual Exhibition 2026 — Royal Institute of Oil Painters
A juried open exhibition for oil painters at Mall Galleries with over GBP 10,000 in awards. Entry is paid and every accepted work must be for sale at 45% plus VAT commission — worth doing the arithmetic before entering.
Aesthetica Art Prize 2027
A long-running open-entry UK prize with GBP 10,000 for the main award, a group exhibition and editorial coverage. It charges per entry and shortlists heavily, so the fee is the thing to weigh.
RSA Blackadder Houston Mid-Career Painting Award
GBP 20,000 to let a mid-career painter stop doing everything else for up to 26 weeks. Unusually, the award is explicitly aimed at artists whose practice is squeezed by employment or caring, not at the newly graduated.
RSA Elizabeth Lornie Moving Image Award
GBP 10,000 to research and produce new moving-image work, followed by an exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy and acquisition into its permanent collection. Students are explicitly excluded.
The ones closing next, in your inbox
Every other Tuesday, a short letter from Rebecka: three calls closing in the coming weeks, what each one pays and costs, and the one she would apply to herself. Unsubscribe in one click.
What gets listed
This calendar is for artists who apply on their own behalf. No assistant, no gallery filing it for them. So we list what such an artist can actually enter, and leave out what she cannot.
Nothing invitation-only or nomination-only. Nothing that requires gallery representation to submit. Nothing restricted to enrolled students. Every listing is checked against the organiser’s own announcement before it appears, and where there is an entry fee the amount is on the card rather than four pages in.
There are aggregators with thousands of entries. This one is shorter on purpose.
Running an open call or a residency programme? Send it to rebecka@samlio.com and it will be checked and listed. There is no charge and no paid placement.