The Contemporary British Painting Prize goes biennial!

The Contemporary British Painting Prize has grown beyond recognition over the years. We started with 300 submissions in 2016, and in 2024 we had an unbelievable 1200+ entries. The first exhibition was just 12 paintings in a small town hall gallery in London, the last exhibition of 51 paintings toured from Cardiff to London and finally to Sheffield, and we were thrilled to offer a total of 5 prizes

We are going from strength to strength and we‘re flattered to be favourably compared to the John Moore’s Painting Prize – especially when the last winner, Graham Crowley, who has been our number one advocate, joined us as a member last year.

With growth comes complexity, and to be perfectly honest, this prize is increasingly difficult to manage every year. It is vital to us that it remains an artist-led prize, run by painters, for painters.

For this reason we have taken the decision to move to a biennial format. This will allow us to invest more time in the prize, to keep the submission fee as low as possible (all the organisers work on this largely on a voluntary basis) and it will also allow us a little more time in the studio!