Wolfson Painting competition 2026

Since its foundation in the 1960s, Wolfson College has built one of the city’s most important collections of modern and contemporary art. The collections and loan displays include works by Howard Hodgkin, Ablade Glover, Bert Irvin, Christopher LeBrun, Anne Redpath and Bridget Riley.

To further our aim of growing and developing the College’s collection of paintings while supporting brilliant artists, Wolfson College’s Arts Sub-Committee is pleased to launch a prize competition for a new addition to the collection, which is made possible by the Geoffrey Garton bequest. The winner will receive a prize of £6,000.

The competition is open to all with no limit on age or experience, but we welcome submission from early career artists. Entries to the competition should be paintings in permanent media (oil, acrylic, pastel) and should be not exceed two metres in height or width.

The competition will be judged by Sir Tim Hitchens (President of Wolfson College), Christian Levett and Eileen Cooper.

Entries should comprise of:

one work only per artist for consideration by the judges
between 1-4 high-quality photographs of the work (maximum total size 8MB) ensuring coverage of the whole painting
details of the work (title, date, medium and dimensions)
a short paragraph about the work (maximum 200 words)
the artist’s CV
All entries should be sent to Luisa Summers by 7 September 2026. The winner will be announced on 28 September 2026.

Terms & Conditions:

Maximum of one submission per entrant
On accepting the prize, the painting is given to Wolfson College Oxford to become part of its permanent art collection
Painting must be free of restrictions on reproduction for the purposes of advertising, publications and merchandise within the College
The winning artist must be responsible for conveying the work safely to the College in Oxford
The College reserves the right to ask for further photographs and information about particular submissions