The Miami-based collectors Jorge and Darlene Pérez are backing a new artist residency programme for Latin American and Caribbean artists launching at the Delfina Foundation in London.
The programme will offer four fully funded artist residencies over the next two years at the foundation based near Victoria station, which has so far hosted more than 550 residencies for artists and other arts professionals from 95 countries.
Applications for the first two residency opportunities, taking place in autumn 2026 and winter 2027, have opened. “The residencies will prioritise artists from countries in Latin America and the Caribbean underrepresented within Delfina Foundation’s recent programmes, as well as artists from related diaspora communities in the United States,” says a statement.
Jorge and his wife Darlene are major players in the Miami art scene and have given at least $60m to the Pérez Art Museum Miami. In 2019, Jorge opened El Espacio 23, a non-profit art space in Miami’s Allapattah neighbourhood to display works from the couple’s collection. He founded the real estate development company, The Related Group, in 1979; Forbes estimates his current net worth to be $2.6bn.
“In addition to Delfina’s established residency programme, artists will benefit from mentoring and exchange with curators and colleagues connected to the Jorge M. Pérez Collection and El Espacio 23,” the project statement adds. “By partnering with Delfina Foundation, we are investing not only in individual artistic development, but in meaningful, sustained cultural exchange between the UK, the Americas and the diaspora,” Jorge adds in a statement.
The couple have also established close links with Tate; last year the Pérezes donated 36 works by 15 artists from Africa and the African diaspora to the institution along with a major work by the blue-chip Abstract Expressionist artist Joan Mitchell (Iva, 1973).
