Rent-free studios launched for London art graduates

Seven rent-free London studios will be made available for outstanding MA Fine Art graduates from Goldsmiths and six of the city’s other top art schools, under a new three-year partnership between Outset Contemporary Art Fund and Tiffany & Co.

Recipients of the Tiffany & Co. x Outset Studiomakers Prize will be selected by a panel including two curators, one artist, one editor and the design director of Tiffany & Co.

To support artists after graduation, prizewinners will be provided with studios and a shared gallery room in Tottenham, Haringey, for a year.

The prize is part of the strategic private-public partnership Studiomakers, to sustain the flow of ideas and talent in London through securing accessibility to creative workspaces.

Studiomakers is a response to the predicted loss of up to 3,500 creative workspaces in London by 2019 (Artists’ Workspace Study, Greater London Authority, 2014).

Earlier this year the initiative received support from Goldsmiths Department of Art graduate and artist Sir Antony Gormley, who has voiced growing concerns about the availability and affordability of artists’ studio spaces in the capital.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has also backed the Studiomakers consortium's plans to develop affordable creative workspaces and tackle the problem of rising rents in the capital.

Co-founder of Outset Contemporary Art Fund, Candida Gertler OBE comments: “The Tiffany & Co. x Outset Studiomakers Prize is a unique and imaginative partnership that will nurture a new generation of artists graduating from London’s top art schools, at a formative time in their careers.

“We are confident that this initiative will also respond to an urgent need to counteract the loss of affordable creative work spaces in London.”

Prize judges are Francesca Amfitheatrof (Design Director, Tiffany & Co.), Margot Heller OBE (Director, South London Gallery), Sam Thorne (Director, Nottingham Contemporary), Eddie Peake (Artist) and Justine Picardie (Editor-in-Chief, Harper’s Bazaar, Town & Country UK).

Studio access will be granted in September 2017.

Tiffany & Co. has a long history of supporting the arts, guided by the belief that a successful company has a responsibility to the greater community. Tiffany continues its commitment to arts and culture in London with its support of the Robert Rauschenberg exhibition opening at the Tate Modern in December 2016.

Design Director of Tiffany & Co., Francesca Amfitheatrof comments: “The birth of ideas is such a fragile moment, it can burst and become life changing as easily as it can die and be unheard. I truly believe that Outset has such an important responsibility as London is one of the great centres of creativity and it is our honour to be able to support artists and designers in making studio spaces available to them.”