As you probably know, a curriculum vitae or CV is an essential part of presenting yourself as a professional artist. But the document, which tells the story of your career, can be challenging to put together: it aggregates so much information and requires so much formatting. To help, we’ve developed a pre-formatted CV template that comes with detailed instructions. Below are some of our favorite tips for constructing a clean and professional CV.
- Neatness counts. The goal of your CV should be to share every single one of your accolades. In order to let them shine, keep the formatting consistent throughout.
- Categories are malleable. If you’re just starting out, you can combine categories to create more substantial lists such as “Awards and Residencies.” Alternatively, if you have a lot of experience, breaking it down into smaller categories can be helpful to highlight more important achievements such as creating a “Bibliography: Interviews” subcategory.
- Make it data-rich. Include all the information you can without using description, which should be saved for other documents. List writers’ names, curators’ names, and consider adding links where appropriate to add value and interactivity.
- Present yourself in the best light. Embarrassed by a show you once did? Received a bad review? You’re under no obligation to include anything you don’t want to on your CV. Add “Selected” to any category and omit anything that is no longer relevant to who you are as an artist.
- Show off! Have lots of awards or lots of solo exhibitions? Put that category all the way up at the top! Though the CV should read logically (i.e. don’t place “Solo Exhibitions” on top and then bury “Group Exhibitions” at the end), you can change the order of the categories to show your practice in the best possible light.
Need help? Based best practices for visual artists, our CV template is designed to help visual artists easily write their own CV. Specific instructions for its use are included in the document itself. The template is a Microsoft Word document that is also compatible with Pages and Google Docs.