The Celeste Art Prize was established in 2005 and is open to all artists living & working in the UK and UK citizens living & working abroad. There are no educational or age requirements.

We are looking for artistic merit: excellence in content, aesthetic, technique and material plus an awareness of the broader context of painting and the media used, whether in traditional format or testing new media in relation to painting.

The first stage of the prize is the selection of the short listed & finalist artists by the members of the Goldsmiths MFA Curatorial Programme. The programme is led by Dr Andrew Renton, writer, curator and one of the jury for the 2006 Turner Prize.

The finalists and short listed artists are included in a full colour catalogue which is intended to be an annual survey of contemporary painting practise in the UK.

The 30 student & 30 artist finalists are given a week long exhibition, to be held this year at the Old Truman Brewery in London, from 21st – 27th May. This will be followed by a further exhibition at Lyon & Turnbull, Edinburgh, Scotland’s leading auctioneers from 7th – 13th June.

During the exhibition the finalists are invited to vote for the artist in their peer group they consider pre-eminent. The £10,000 Artist and £5,000 Student Artist prizes will be announced at the end of the exhibition at the Award Ceremony on Sunday, 27th May 2007.

In addition there is also a £2,000 Public On Line Vote prize which opens to the public on the 1st April and runs for six weeks prior to the Finalists’ Exhibition and which gives the public the opportunity to vote for their favourite artist. All artists who submitted work to the prize are included in this section. The artists’ work is shown on this web site & details of how to vote are given on the Public Online Vote page. The winner of the Public Online Vote prize will also be awarded their prize at the Award Ceremony on Sunday, 27th May.

Celeste Art Prize is delighted to have as our media partner, The Times Online, and there will be many articles and opportunities to debate the contemporary painting in the run up to and after the prize through www.timesonline.co.uk

Celeste Art Prize is grateful for the support and sponsorship provided by Access Industries.

The Celeste Art Prize is the sister prize to the Italian PremioCeleste which was founded by Steven Music in 2003. For further information please see www.premioceleste.it

A Celeste Art Prize has recently been established in Germany and the first German Finalists’ Exhibition will be held in Berlin in the autumn of 2007.