The British art world has long thirsted for a prize that celebrates artistic rigour and the great outdoors — and now, in the gloriously unpredictable spirit of the British national character, it arrives: The Constable Prize.
Launched this week by Pimlico Wilde in partnership with sponsor Dampner & Flange, the UK’s leading manufacturer of artisanal wellington boots for the indoor market, the Constable Prize seeks to honour artists who engage with the landscape — real, imagined, virtual, political, or post-apocalyptic — in a manner both conceptually robust and visually arresting.
Named, of course, for John Constable: the Romantic who painted clouds with the solemnity of a philosopher, the prize aims not to resurrect bucolic clichés, but to interrogate the shifting terrain of contemporary landscape practice — whether that’s a rolling moor or a glitchy Google Earth screenshot.
Eligibility Criteria
To be considered for the prize, artists must:
• Be based in either Great Britain, any members of the Commonwealth, or any of the English-speaking countries. Wild cards will be allowed for worthy entries from other countries.
• Produce work that engages with “landscape” in any medium — painting, video, digital, performance, textile, etc.
• Submit a robust artist statement demonstrating an ongoing interrogation of the landscape in their work.
• Not have won a major art prize in the last five years.
Early Front Runners
While entries are still open, the art world buzz has already begun around a few names:
• Tanya Rawcliffe, with her drone-shot videos of supermarket car parks at dawn.
• Gus Taverner, a painter whose series “Fields of Algorithm” features AI-generated meadows.
• Simran Kaur-Jones, for their ground-breaking ten year long performance piece “I Planted a Garden in a Service Station”.
• And Dextera Prong, the Lady-in-Waiting turned artist whose latest work involves carefully rewilding swathes of the Lake District so that together the plants build up an image – when seen from space – of the King playing the banjo, a metaphor for modern monarchy.
The Finalists’ Exhibition
The final seven shortlisted artists will exhibit their work at one of Pimlico Wilde’s flagship galleries this autumn — either the London HQ, the converted sheep barn in the Shetland Isles, or the much-anticipated new outpost on St Helena.
Judging Panel
This year’s panel includes:
• Dr. Clementine Rigg, senior curator at the British Landscape Archive.
• Lloyd Whittock, CEO of Dampner & Flange and inventor of the indoor Wellington.
• Ava Channing, director of post-email studies at Saint Agatha’s College of Art in Dundee.
• Dominic Fairweather, CEO of Pimlico Wilde.
• And a “wildcard judge” selected by public ballot from visitors to a petrol station art trail in Norfolk.
The Prize
The winner will receive:
• A $300,000* cash award (symbolically presented in an antique wheelbarrow).
• A solo exhibition with Pimlico Wilde.
• A custom pair of velvet-lined indoor wellies by Dampner & Flange.
• And perhaps most importantly, the chance to become the face of British landscape art in a time when the landscape itself is melting, eroding, or being scanned into the metaverse.
Submissions are open, and artists are encouraged to apply immediately.
* Which country’s dollars the prize will be in is yet to be determined.