Recommendation Letters

The application provides a section for references.

We ask applicants to list the names and addresses of four persons who are familiar with your work and to whom the Foundation may write for judgment concerning your abilities, especially in relation to your proposal. All statements by references to the Foundation are held in the strictest confidence and will not be provided to the applicant.

Those who are familiar with your recent work and can comment on the course of your career as a whole will make the best references. Individuals who have a business or financial interest in your work—such as dealers, agents, and editors—would not be the most impartial references to provide, and would not be considered especially useful.

Please request the permission of each person whom you list as a reference before listing them. Although requests for evaluations will be sent to the four persons you list, they are not obligated to reply. The Foundation cannot inform you whether the people you list actually submit their evaluations; those whose permission has been sought in advance by the applicant are most likely to respond. It is the applicant’s responsibility to ensure the accuracy of a reference’s email or mailing address.

The Foundation does not bring forward letters of reference from previous years. (But applicants may, if they wish, name the same references they have named before, and those references may of course choose to send us the same letters they sent before.)

If you have been asked to submit a reference letter for an applicant or applicants, then follow this link.

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