To apply for a contemporary art award, you find an open call you are eligible for, read its terms in full, prepare exactly the images and text it asks for, pay any entry fee and submit online before the stated deadline. The details vary far more than most guides admit: one major UK painting prize takes a single painting, a leading graduate showcase takes up to three works, and the best-known prize of all cannot be applied for at all. The useful skill is reading each call closely and building your entry around its rules rather than a generic template.

Know which awards you can actually apply for

Contemporary art prizes fall into two broad groups. Open-submission awards invite anyone who meets the eligibility rules to send work. Nominated awards choose artists through a jury or a network of nominators, and an unsolicited application will go nowhere.

The Turner Prize is the clearest example of the second kind. Tate explains on its Turner Prize page that "each year the Turner Prize jury shortlist four artists for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation", and that the prize goes to a British artist, meaning someone working primarily in Britain or born in Britain and working globally. There has been no age limit since 2016. For 2026, The Art Newspaper reported that Simeon Barclay, Kira Freije, Marguerite Humeau and Tanoa Sasraku were shortlisted, with the exhibition at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art from 26 September 2026 and the winner due to be named on 10 December 2026 (checked October 2026). The route to a prize like this runs through exhibiting, not through a form.

Some large awards are open to applications, but not from artists. The Jerwood Art Fund Commissions, worth £70,000 to £100,000 each, are applied for by UK museums and galleries, and Art Fund states plainly that it "does not accept applications or enquiries directly from artists". The 2026 round closed on 2 October 2026 (checked October 2026). If an opportunity like this suits your work, the practical step is a conversation with a curator, not an entry fee.

Everything below concerns the first group: open calls that artists enter directly.

Read the terms before you prepare anything

The terms and conditions decide what you submit, so read them before you choose a single image. Two well-regarded UK open calls show how much they differ.

The John Moores Painting Prize 2025 terms allowed one painting per artist, with multiple entries under the same or different names prohibited. Entrants had to live or be professionally based in the UK and be 18 or over, with no maximum age. The work was to be new or recent, "preferably created since 1 January 2024", and had to fit within 3m by 3.75m when packed. The fee was £30 including VAT.

The New Contemporaries open call for 2026 ran from 23 February to 30 March 2026. It was open to emerging and early career artists aged 21 or over and based in the UK who had not exhibited with New Contemporaries before, and applicants had to be available for a monthly Artist Development Programme from September 2026 to June 2027. The fee was £25, non-refundable, and applicants could submit up to three works in any medium with a short written statement (checked October 2026).

Look for these points in any set of terms:

  • Who is eligible: age, residence, career stage, student status, previous participation.
  • How many works, how recent, what size and in which media.
  • The exact deadline, including the time of day and time zone.
  • The fee, whether it is refundable, and any extra charges if you are selected.
  • What rights you grant over your images and whether selected work must be for sale.

That last point matters. The John Moores terms required the painting to be available for sale, with the Walker Art Gallery given first option to buy. Read clauses like this before you enter work you would not want to part with.

Prepare images to the stated specification

At many open calls the first round is judged from images alone. The John Moores terms are explicit that at Stage 1 "the selection of the artworks for the exhibition is entirely based on the image submitted". Your photograph is the work, as far as the jury is concerned at that point.

Follow the technical brief exactly. The John Moores asked for JPEGs of up to 10MB and at least 1000 by 1000 pixels, with one complete image of the painting and up to three optional detail shots. It also required that the images be "unaltered by computer software", which rules out tidying a painting digitally. Other calls set different limits, so do not reuse a fixed size from a previous entry.

Some practical habits help regardless of the specification:

  • Photograph flat work square-on in even, diffuse light, and crop to the edge of the work unless the call asks for installation views.
  • Check colour against the original on a calibrated or at least neutral screen.
  • Use detail shots to show surface or scale the full image cannot convey, not to add more works by the back door.
  • Name files the way the call asks, or with your entry title, so nothing is mismatched on upload.

For video, sound and performance, check what format and length the form accepts and whether it wants a file or a link. Never assume a viewer will watch more than the opening, so choose an excerpt that stands on its own.

Choose work that holds together

When a call allows several works, the selection itself is part of the application. Three pieces that clearly belong to one line of enquiry tend to read more convincingly than three unrelated highlights. When a call allows one work, as the John Moores does, the choice is starker: submit the piece you would be happiest to see judged on its own, by people who know nothing else about you.

Recency matters too. Many calls state a date after which work must have been made, and the John Moores preference for work made since January 2024 meant roughly the previous year of output. Check the date before you shortlist your images.

Captions should give title, medium, dimensions and year in the order the form requests. If dimensions are approximate or variable for an installation, say so rather than guessing.

Write a statement that describes the work

Most open calls ask for some text, and the length is usually set by the form. When none is given, the artist-support organisation Artquest suggests in its guide to artist statements keeping a basic version of "about 100 – 200 words" that "you can grow or shrink as necessary for different situations". It recommends covering your media and why you use them, the themes and processes in the work, and what connects pieces together, while leaving career history to the CV.

Artquest's other advice is worth taking literally: use clear, plain language, be accurate without exaggeration, refer to physical qualities as well as ideas, and avoid superlatives. A sentence such as "large charcoal drawings made from faded family photographs" gives a juror something to check against the image. A sentence about "interrogating the nature of memory" does not. Artquest suggests writing in the third person, although many calls are happy with the first person, so follow the form if it says otherwise.

Write the statement for the work you are actually submitting. If a call has a theme, say concretely how the work relates to it. Our separate guide on the [artist statement for an award submission](007-artist-statement-award-submission.md) goes into structure in more detail.

Understand how judging works

Juries at open calls usually work in stages, and knowing the stages helps you see what each part of your entry has to do.

The John Moores Painting Prize is known for anonymous selection. According to ArtRabbit's report on the 2025 prize, over 3,000 artists entered and 71 painters were selected for the exhibition, and "the paintings remained anonymous throughout the judging process". The jury that year was Zhang Enli, Dr Zoé Whitley, Michael Simpson, Gemma Rolls-Bentley and Louise Giovanelli. Ally Fallon, 27, won the £25,000 first prize with If You Were Certain, What Would You Do Then?, and became the youngest winner in the prize's history. Under anonymous judging, your name, CV and connections count for nothing at the selection stage. The image does all the work.

New Contemporaries describes a two-stage process, with the 2026 call reviewed by artists Joy Gregory, Florence Peake and Abbas Zahedi alongside the organisation's team. The previous cohort's exhibition at the South London Gallery showed 26 artists selected through an open call by Pio Abad, Louise Giovanelli and Grace Ndiritu.

Two lessons follow. Numbers are large, so your entry is one of thousands at the biggest calls, and selection rates are low. And selectors change each round, so a rejection says little about how a different panel will respond next time.

Check any award before you pay

Entry fees are common and are not a warning sign in themselves. New Contemporaries says its £25 fee supports its development programme, including mentoring, artist fees, travel and access support. What matters is whether you can see what the fee buys and who decides.

Christopher Pape's guide to vetting open calls in Chronogram suggests four checks: clear terms on rights and licensing, transparency about where the money goes, a track record of named winners and documented results, and a timeline that makes sense. He notes that "a flurry of dates or a moving date is a warning sign", and that "when you have to dig, that's a hint of a red flag."

Further checks you can make in a few minutes:

  • Are the judges named, with roles you can confirm on their own institutions' websites?
  • Can you find past selected artists and see where the work was shown?
  • Is there a published number of entries or selected artists?
  • Does selection bring further charges, such as hanging fees or compulsory catalogue costs?
  • Does the call come from the organiser's own site, rather than only from a listing?

That last check catches stale details as well. Artquest's listing for the John Moores Painting Prize still showed an entry fee of £25 when checked in October 2026, while the official 2025 terms gave £30. Directories such as ArtRabbit's artist opportunities are useful for finding calls, but confirm every figure at the source. Our guide on [whether paid art competitions are worth it](006-are-paid-art-competitions-worth-it.md) looks at fees in more depth.

Submit early and keep records

Register on the submission platform well before the deadline so you can see every field and file requirement in advance. The John Moores 2025 registration closed at 5pm on a Monday, and New Contemporaries closed at 2pm. Treat the published time as final and plan to finish at least a few days early, since uploads and payments can fail when everyone submits at once.

Before you press submit, check spelling of your name and titles, the order of images, captions against files, and your contact email. Save a copy of the confirmation and any receipt, and if no confirmation arrives, contact the organiser before the deadline rather than after.

Keep a simple record of every call you enter: deadline, fee, works submitted, statement version and result. Over a year it shows which kinds of opportunity respond to your work, which helps you [choose art awards to enter](004-how-to-choose-art-awards-enter.md) next time, and it stops you sending the same image to a call where it was already turned down.

Frequently asked questions

Can I apply for the Turner Prize?

No. Artists are shortlisted by the jury for an exhibition or presentation from the previous year. There is no application form.

How many works should I submit?

Exactly as many as the call allows, and no more. The John Moores Painting Prize took one painting per artist, while New Contemporaries accepted up to three works.

Do I need an exhibition history to apply?

Not for anonymously judged calls such as the John Moores, where jurors see only the work and its basic details. Other calls weigh career stage differently, so check the eligibility wording.