Art Contests with Cash Prizes in 2026–2027: The List and the Arithmetic
Cash is the easiest prize to compare and the worst one to optimise for. A $500 award from a competition with a named jury and a permanent archive will do more for a career than $5,000 from an event nobody can verify — and yet prize money matters, because studio time is paid for in money, not in exposure.
This guide lists competitions and grants with real cash awards, using only what each organiser publishes on its own page, then does the arithmetic most listings skip: what a prize is worth once fees, odds and the value of the record are counted together.
Cash prizes with open deadlines
Every call in this table carries a cash award and was checked on the organiser's own page; the date of that check is shown with each entry. Calls that have closed fold away at the bottom.
Three categories: a single photograph, a series of three to five, and scientific or medical imaging. Illustration, moving image and AI-generated images are excluded. The prize is named for 2027; entries close in October 2026.
Applications are free; selected work is shown in 22,000 m² of a former iron foundry and an 80,000 m² sculpture park, 5 June – 3 October 2027. Up to ten images per application.
Up to three works per artist. Judged by an international jury; finalists receive diplomas and an evaluation.
Submissions close at noon Eastern. Exhibition 6 April – 7 May 2027, after which around 40 works tour the US for a year.
Pastel in every form, plus charcoal, chalk and pencil. Selected work hangs at Mall Galleries, 27 January – 6 February 2027.
Entries close 3 December 2026 at 11:30 GMT; the jury’s final decision is due 12 March 2027.
Adult (18+) and Young (17 and under) competitions; winners are announced in September 2027.
A series of six photographs of plants, gardens or landscapes; shortlisted portfolios are shown and judged from 18 June 2027.
Single Image closes 5 January 2027 at 16:00 GMT; the Series competition closes a week later, on 12 January 2027.
Biennial prize, judged anonymously; exhibition 25 February – 20 March 2027.
Up to six works may be entered and up to four selected; photography is not eligible. Exhibition 25 February – 6 March 2027.
Water-based media only: watercolour, acrylic, ink, gouache. Prizes are listed as subject to final confirmation.
The site gives both 14 and 15 February 2027 as the final deadline; the earlier date is shown here. Winners are announced 11 April 2027.
Recently closed (1)
One winner from one image. Any 2D or 3D medium; AI-generated work is not accepted.
Deadlines and fees are read from each organiser’s own page on the date shown with the entry. They do change — check the organiser’s site before you prepare an entry.
The largest sums here belong to the photography awards: the Sony World Photography Awards pay $25,000 to the Series winner, and the Wellcome Photography Prize £10,000 to each of its three category winners. In painting and drawing, NordArt's prize is €10,000, and the Pastel Society's annual exhibition carries over £5,000 in prizes for a fee of £22 a work.
Grants and prizes between cycles
These are not in the table because their next deadline is not yet published. What follows is what their own pages say.
The Hopper Prize
Individual artist grants awarded twice a year, in spring and autumn. Each cycle pays two grants of $4,500 and four of $1,000, and thirty artists from each cycle have their work archived on the Hopper Prize site. Any artist aged 18 or over, working in any medium and from anywhere, can apply, with a $40 submission fee. The money is unrestricted: no exhibition comes attached to it.
ArtPrize
The Grand Rapids festival ran its 2026 edition from 18 September to 3 October, with two $100,000 grand prizes, one decided by public vote and one by a jury, and $10,000 awards in each category. Solo registration in 2026 cost $65. Dates for 2027 are not yet announced. The catch is logistical: the work is shown physically at a venue in Grand Rapids, Michigan, so shipping belongs in the arithmetic.
Not confirmed at the source
Some of the best-known cash prizes, among them the National Portrait Gallery's Portrait Award and the John Moores Painting Prize, are missing here for one reason: we could not read their current terms on the organisers' own pages when this guide was updated. They are added when we can. Check their sites directly before relying on any figure quoted elsewhere.
Curatone.art competitions
Our calls pair a cash award with what we consider the longer-lasting half of the prize: a numbered certificate, a juried online exhibition and a permanent entry in the winners archive. Entry is free, with a $25 finalist fee only for selected works. The structure is published in the rules, and the current call is always on the competitions page.
The arithmetic of prize money
Expected value is prize × odds − fee. A $10,000 prize behind a $50 fee and 5,000 entries returns two dollars on fifty. Enter it for the jury and the record — never for the expected value, which is negative at almost every competition on earth.
Cash concentrates; records distribute. One artist takes the cheque, but every finalist takes the line on the CV. Over a career, the lines compound — a point we argued in Are Art Competitions Worth It? and that underpins the exhibition record as a working asset.
Grants beat prizes for expected value. Programmes like the Hopper Prize, and the broader funding landscape we mapped in the artist grants guide, pay out on the strength of a portfolio rather than one themed entry, and unrestricted money is worth more than earmarked money.
Mind the taxes and the shipping. Prize money is taxable income in most jurisdictions, and physical exhibitions can eat a regional prize whole in crating and freight.
Before you chase a cheque
Verify the competition the way you would verify an employer — the routine in How to Spot a Fake Art Competition takes fifteen minutes. Then enter with the work that fits the call, photographed properly (our guide), and treat any cheque that arrives as what it is: a bonus on top of the record, which is the part you get to keep either way.