Salon Art Prize

The Salon Art Prize is a monthly online competition open to painters and draughtspeople worldwide. With 19 categories to choose from, you can enter work across multiple areas to increase your chances — though each category entry requires a separate fee.

Entry fees are tiered: early bird entries (1st–15th of the month) start at $29 for your first entry and $12 for each additional one. Regular entries (16th–month-end) are $40 for the first and $16 for each additional.

All entries must be original compositions painted entirely by the entering artist. Work based on someone else's photograph — even a copyright-free one — is not eligible. Paintings must be based on the artist's own reference photos. Copies of other artists' work, AI-generated images, digital art, printed or painted-over photographs are strictly prohibited.

Plein air category entries must have been completed entirely outdoors (though across multiple sessions is fine), and cannot have been finished in the studio.

Since the competition is online-only, paintings don't need to be newly made or in your possession — older and sold works are welcome. There's a limit of 25 entries per monthly competition.

Monthly winners are automatically included in the Annual Competition judging, so there's no need to re-enter winning works. A painting can only win once, and the Grand Prize can only be won once per artist across their lifetime of entries.

Entries are submitted via a free ShowSubmit.com account. Images must be JPEG format, sRGB colour space, and under 32MB.