Unfortunately the Sworders Prize for Young Artists 2023 has had to be postponed until 2024 due to unforeseen health related circumstances. This year's entries will automatically be submitted for 2024.
All entrants who have already submitted their work will be refunded. Theirs and any artist who enters before the deadline of midnight on Sunday 12th November, will have their work entered into the Sworders Prize for Young Artists 2024 for free. They will of course have created their work within the correct age criteria.
In the meantime, we apologise for any inconvenience caused.
Sworders Young Artists | Sworders Emerging Artists | ||
Christine Allman | Sascha Chopra | Sandy Horsley | Janet Payne |
Diana Ashdown | Antonia Clare | Caroline Houchell | Jessica Perry |
Anna Badar | Greg Cook |
Susan Issac |
Fran Raisen |
Peter Baldwin | Ros Chopping | H J Jackson | Gavin Redwood |
Kay Barker | Adam Cornish | Liz James | Kirsten Riley |
Phil Barrett | David Cutts | Ben Kendall | Peter Rodulfo |
Mia Bartram | Leah Davies | Caroline Killoury | Tracey Ross |
Maria Belderbos | Colin Devine | Wendy Kimberley | Anna Sims |
Sean Bennett | Sophie Duez | Lizzie Kimbley | Alexander Soskin |
Jeremy Bevan | Zelda Eady | Victoria Kurrien | Emilia Symis |
Mia Bilbeisi | Luke Edgar | Yewon Lee | John Thomson |
Mary Blue | Alex Egan | Ed Lee | Corrin Tulk |
Alex Boardman | Lorna Fellas | Mary Mabbott | Luke Underwood |
Margie Britz | Frankie Hanmer | Caroline Mackintosh | Peter Valori |
Julie Brooks | Caroline Forward | Ruth McCabe | Jane Weinle |
Christine Brownrigg | Denise Franklin | Alison McFarlane | Sue Welfare |
Gabriella Buckingham | Kate Giles | Arianna Milesi | Robert Wibberley |
Emma Buckmaster | Linda Gower | Nicole Minton | Lizzie Wood |
Ruth Butler | Katya Granova | Peter Norton | Trevor Woods |
Freya Carlton | Helen Herbert | Michael Nunn | Paul Zawadski |
Rose Brettingham | Moira Goodall | Susan Purser-Hope | Jane West |
Emma Buckmaster | John Hannyngton | Jacqui Ramrayka | Kartina Wheeler |
Caroline Chouler-Tissier | Spadge Hopkins | Karin Schösser | Shinhye You |
Emily Crookshank | Emmy Palmer | Sarah Stachan | |
Ant & Di Edmonds | Jade Pinnell | Mary Wakelin |
Anne is an artist, art editor, writer, curator and educator. She gained a BA and MA at the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University and a Postgraduate Diploma in Printmaking at Central School of Art & Design, London. She has taught wood engraving widely, including at the RA Schools, British Museum and Middlesex University and is a former external examiner in Fine Art at Aberystwyth University and a Kingston University College of Art. She was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in 2011 and is only the third wood engraver to be elected in the Academy’s over two-hundred-and-fifty year history. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers and the Society of Wood Engravers and an Honorary Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford.
She was editor of Printmaking Today (the quarterly journal of international graphic art) for fifteen years (1998-2013) and has authored several significant books on printmaking and is widely published elsewhere. She is curator/author of Scene through Wood - A Century of Modern Wood Engraving, an Ashmolean Museum touring exhibition from 2020.
Her work is represented in important institutional collections throughout Britain as well as collections in Brazil, Finland, France, Italy, Russia, Poland and the USA. She has won numerous prizes and awards in the UK and also Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Finland, Russia and the USA.
Nic is an artist, art writer, museum trustee, curator and valuer. She read History of Art at Edinburgh then trained at Christies and has worked in the art valuation and appraisals business for over twenty-five years, including work for many of the UK's major institutions. She has curated numerous exhibitions and is co-curator of German Expressionists & The Third Reich at the festival. Over the years she has written about many artists, currently she is co-editing and contributing to German Expressionists & The Important Collection at Leicester Museum & Art Gallery, which will be launched at the festival this year. She is a trustee of the Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden – a beacon of 20th Century art in East Anglia.
As an artist, she was the first entrant in the first Holt Festival Art Prize, fourteen years ago. Her Cornish & East Anglian land and seascapes have been shortlisted on several occasions here and elsewhere. Her work is represented in the National Trust collection and in private collections internationally. In 2022 she was the Circles of Art, runner up – Artist of the Year.
For the last decade Dulcie has directed the programme of exhibitions and events at the much loved Fairhurst Gallery in the Norwich Lanes and has brought a wide array of arts to the city. With a background in arts, youth arts and theatre Dulcie gained her Fine Art Degree at Norwich University of The Arts and then went on to lead their Student Union. She has curated a number of external events including The River Waveney Sculpture Trail in 2016 and has helped create a hub for artists with the Fairhurst artist studio spaces, alongside the framing and restoration. She has a passion for youth arts and engagement and offers schemes for students, giving them a chance to gain experience, within a commercial gallery setting, providing prizes for MA and Degree level students and is excited that the Fairhurst Gallery will be the venue that will showcase this year’s Sworders Prize for Emerging Artists winner.
Charlotte has been involved for a number of years with both the Royal College of Art and Royal College of Music awarding scholarships and bursaries to post graduate students. After Brighton Art School and picking up pins in a couture house, Charlotte started work designing dresses before moving on to knitwear in the seventies. The eighties brought a radical change of direction when she and her husband bought a vinyard in southwest France. Charlotte has also been awarding scholarships and bursaries at the RCA Ceramics & Glass Department for the last twenty years. Many of the recipients have gone on to achieve great sucess in their careers. These include Zemer Peled, Katherine Morling, James Lethbridge, Amy Lax, Katie Spragg, Celia Dowson, Luke Fuller & Bryony Applegate.
Polly is an artist, academic and arts adviser. A degree in sculpture and post-grad diploma in ceramics led to a practice which engages with the material properties of canvas, paint and thread. Work is held in international collections - MOMA Kyoto Japan, in UK public collections - Whitworth Art Gallery Manchester, gifted by Contemporary Arts Society, as well as significatnt private collections - The House on Evening Hill, Poole, Dorset, Architect Richard Horden. Her work has received both Arts Council and British Council grant support.
An Academic career has involved teaching and examining at Foundation, BA and MA level in numerous UK Universities across a wide range of contemporary studio material based subject disciplines including ceramics and glass, textiles and the fine arts. A midcareer PhD by Practice led to research development and PhD supervision and examination. She was awarded a Research Professorship in 2001 and formed a cross disciplinary Research Group in Material Knowledge in the Faculty of Design at Buckinghamshire New University before stepping down in 2007 and subsequently moving to Holt.
An early career post as Crafts Officer for the Southern Regional Arts Board led afterwards to multiple Arts Advisory roles - as a member of Council with the Crafts Council including at various stages chairing committees including the Purchasing and Index committee, the Makers Setting up Grant Scheme and Makers development Award committee. In conjunction with her academic posts she served as an assessor and panel member for the Arts and Humanities research Board, now Council.