Best new awards & arts prize winners: May 2026

Award winners

Serpentine x FLAG Art Foundation Prize

Japanese artist Gozo Yoshimasu has been awarded the inaugural Serpentine x FLAG Art Foundation Prize. This new award is the UK’s largest contemporary art prize for a single artist. Yoshimasu will stage a solo exhibition at Serpentine North in autumn 2027, followed by a reimagined presentation for The FLAG Art Foundation in New York in spring 2028.

This long-term collaboration initiates an ongoing artistic dialogue between the two institutions and underscores their shared belief in the power of collaboration to shape the future of contemporary art. The £200,000 prize will be awarded biennially over the next decade, providing the winning artists with unmatched support at a pivotal moment in their careers.

Having emerged from Tokyo’s interdisciplinary avant garde of the 1960s, Yoshimasu has developed a distinctive practice that combines poetry with performance, audio recordings, photography and his own moving-image form known as gozoCiné.

Turner Prize nominees

Tate Britain has announced Simeon Barclay, Kira Freije, Marguerite Humeau and Tanoa Sasraku as the nominees for the Turner Prize 2026.

Established in 1984, the Turner Prize is one of the world’s best-known awards for the visual arts, and aims to promote public debate around new developments in contemporary British art.

The winner will receive £25,000, with the other shortlisted artists receiving £10,000 each. This year’s Turner Prize Exhibition will be held at Teesside University’s Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art from September, with the winner to be announced on 10 December 2026.

Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist

Celebrating female creativity, the 2026 shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction spans an incredible breadth of themes, geographies, time periods and literary styles.

The six shortlisted novels each interrogate the roles women play in society and the power they hold, and explore themes of agency and human connection, centring very different but unforgettable protagonists. The shortlist is:

• Flashlight by Susan Choi (Jonathan Cape, Vintage, Penguin Random House UK)
• Dominion by Addie E Citchens (Europa Editions UK)
• Heart the Lover by Lily King (Canongate)
• Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly (Saraband)
• The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House UK)
• The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson (Cassava Republic Press)

The winner of the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction will be announced in June. They will receive a prize of £30,000, anonymously endowed, along with a statuette known as the Bessie, created and donated by the late artist Grizel Niven.  

RISE Emerging Artist Prize

Niah McGiff is the winner of this year’s RISE Emerging Artist Prize, awarded as part of the annual Henley Festival. McGiff is a London-based artist whose figurative paintings explore interior emotional and psychological states. Her works are concerned with the materiality of paint itself, using gesture, colour and texture to carry emotional meaning.

The RISE Emerging Artist Prize aims to support and nurture early career artists who aspire to build a professional practice. McGiff wins £1000, while the two runners-up, Yuchen Ge and Mark Jackson, each receive £500.

Works by the winners and all the shortlisted artists will be exhibited in the RISE Gallery at the festival. The Henley Festival runs from 8 to 12 July at Henley-on-Thames.

Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition

Italian conductor Matteo Dal Maso is the winner of the prestigious Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition. The prize package includes £15,000, awarded by competition founder Donatella Flick, along with the opportunity to become Assistant Conductor with the London Symphony Orchestra.

The thrilling final at LSO St Luke’s saw Dal Maso compete against French conductor Félix Benati and the young German conductor Leonhard Kreutzmann. The esteemed jury was chaired by Sir Antonio Pappano and included conductors Sian Edwards and Thomas Søndergård, composer and conductor Sir James MacMillan, and LSO musicians Rachel Gough and Sarah Quinn.  

Belfast Photo Festival Spotlight Award

Louise Desnos and Laura Pannack are the joint winners of this year’s Spotlight Award at the Belfast Photo Festival. They will share the £2000 prize and have their works exhibited in the Belfast Botanic Gardens during the festival. Pannack was chosen for her project The Journey Home from School, while Desnos was selected for Acedia. Belfast Photo Festival is at multiple venues across the city from 4 to 30 June 2026.

The Pantomime Awards 2026

The Pantomine Association has announced the winners of the 2026 Pantomime Awards. There were two recipients of the inaugural Panto Icon Award. Brian Conley was recognised for his tireless energy, definitive Buttons performances, and unrivalled connection with audiences that have made him one of the most recognisable figures in panto today.

Lesley Joseph was celebrated for her star presence and for consistently delighting audiences as a leading fairy and villain across the UK’s major pantomime stages. This special category was introduced to recognise a sustained commitment to the artform, mastery of its unique craft, recognition and affection from audiences and a consistently high standard of performance over many years.

Designer Terry Parsons received the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Pantomime for his imaginative and iconic work that has shaped the look, spirit and craft of British pantomime for more than 50 years, and Johnny McKnight was recognised for his work as a writer, director and performer over more than 20 years. His Achievement in Innovation award celebrated his groundbreaking productions, bold inclusivity and creative courage.

Museum of the Year finalists

Art Fund has announced the five finalists for the 2026 Museum of the Year Award. These awards recognise achievement, forward-thinking practices, creativity and innovation in the museum sector nationally.

The five finalists are The National Gallery and the V&A East Storehouse in London; The Box in Plymouth; The Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery; and the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. The winner will be announced on 25 June and will receive £120,000, with each runner-up receiving £20,000.

Society of Portrait Sculptors Prizes for Excellence

The Society of Portrait Sculptors has announced the winners of this year’s sculpture prizes across the categories of portrait, figure and relief.

Jethro Crabb received the £5000 Sedlecka Award for the best 3D human portrait with his remarkable bronze portrait of a young Enzo Ferrari, founder of the iconic Italian car maker. Continuing the motoring theme, Charlotte Cundell won the £500 Tiranti Prize for a portrait sculptor aged 30 or under, for her tribute to the Brazilian Formula One driver Ayrton Senna who tragically lost his life at Imola in 1994.

The Society Award of £1000 went to Albert Kozak for his wood sculpture From Grottger’s Watercolour, based on a watercolour by Polish artist Artur Grottger. Orli Ivanov’s eye-catching Oceania won the £500 Material Prize for the ‘best exhibit using an unusual material or using a material unusually’.

This richly decorated ceramic head represents the goddess of the sea and mother of reefs, touching on themes of creation, erosion, grief, growth and rejuvenation. As the artist says, it representes ‘a woman shaped by time, water and tides’.

Upcoming opportunities

Trinity Bouy Wharf Drawing Prize

Entries are now being accepted for the annual Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize. This is the UK’s leading open-call exhibition for contemporary drawing. It is open to artists, and everyone who draws, from around the world.

The exhibition of shortlisted drawings will be held at Trinity Buoy Wharf in London ahead of a UK tour. It will be accompanied by a fully illustrated publication and an engaging program of talks, events and drawing sessions.

The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize has a main prize of £15,000. Last year, it was won by Olivia Rowland for her work I Am Destroy.

There is also a Student Award of £2000 and the Three Boroughs Award, for artists living or working in Tower Hamlets, Newham and Greenwich, which is worth £1000. Submissions close on 9 June, with winners announced in September.

Royal Society of Marine Artists Annual Exhibition

The Royal Society of Marine Artists seeks submissions of art inspired by the sea and marine environments to be shown alongside works by members in the society’s annual exhibition.

The marine theme can including settings like harbours, shorelines, creeks, beaches and tidal waters, and subjects like traditional watercraft, contemporary shipping and wildlife.

The exhibition is a showcase for the best in contemporary marine art and offers several prizes and awards, including the Charles Pears Award for an outstanding work by a non-member. Entries close 24 July.

Martha Mills Young Writers Prize

Martha Mills Young Writers Prize is open to 11 to 14 year-olds living in the UK. The prize aims to give young people a chance to explore new themes in their writing and to get their work published. The three winning writers will each receive £200 as well as a selection of books and a special souvenir. The guest judge this year is Michael Rosen, author of 140 books including ​everybody’s favourite picture book, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. The theme for 2026 is ‘An Unlikely Friend’. Entries close on 26 June.

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