Year one · Open to U.S. citizens
Enter up to three works you already have. Entries open Nov 5.
Six cash prizes, plus $250 for every selected artist. You keep your work and your copyright.
The single work, from any category, that best joins mastery with beauty, truth or love.
The best work in the flagship Rehumanism category.
The best portrait.
The best work in the Open category.
For an exhibited artist who is 35 or under, or who first showed work in public in 2022 or later.
Chosen by visitors
An honorarium for each of the 50 artists in the show, on top of any prize.
Plus the Collector's Purchase: the Foundation buys at least one exhibited work at the artist's price. Prize rules
A minute: your name, email and where to reach you.
Work you already have is welcome, from any year. A photo, the details and a few lines on each.
Post once, anywhere public, starting “I entered”. Paste the link and you’re in.
#RehumanismPrizeWe email you after judging. 50 works go on show in Seattle.
Beauty · Truth · Love
The words are set in the mosaic at the Occidental's door, and they are the heart of this prize. Craft gets a work into the room. What wins is the feeling a viewer carries home.
When you enter, you tick the one each work carries most. It helps the jury see what you were reaching for.
Three categories
Your works can be in different categories. Year one especially looks for emotional power, and for work that speaks to our own time.
I The flagship
Work that carries beauty, truth or love to people living now: to console, to remember, to honor someone, to bring people together.
Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Banjo Lesson, 1893. Hampton University Museum, Virginia. See it at Hampton University Museum
II A person, seen truly
Commissioned or not, painted, drawn or sculpted, from life or from your own references.
John Singer Sargent, Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, 1892. National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh. See it at the National Galleries of Scotland
III Everything else
Figure, landscape, still life, interiors, animals and imaginative work, if it is representational and a physical original.
Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877. The Art Institute of Chicago. See it at the Art Institute of Chicago
Who has done it
Paintings that have moved people for centuries. We are not asking you to copy them. We are asking for work that does to viewers today what these did to theirs.
The works shown here are examples chosen for commentary and education. We haven't sought permission for every image; in our judgment this is editorial fair use. If you have any concern about an image, please write to us and we'll gladly address it.
Art of our times
Phones in every hand and loneliness at every table. Machines that write and paint. A pandemic, a world on the move, families that look different from their grandparents'. Paint it so well that a viewer a hundred years from now will know how it felt.
The exhibition · May and June 2027
The judges select 50 works for the Colisevm, the restored Coliseum Theatre at Fifth and Pike in downtown Seattle, and each artist receives a $250 honorarium. Works may be sold, with no commission.
Visit the ColisevmRendering of the Coliseum Theatre interior, Conru Art Foundation.
The year ahead
November 5
Free to enter, online
February 21
11:59 pm Pacific
March 26
After two rounds of judging
April 5
People's Choice voting opens
May 13
At the Colisevm, Fifth and Pike
June 26
People's Choice named
Yes. There is no fee to enter, to be selected or to win. We built the tools to handle entries ourselves, so your part is simply to upload your work. The one thing we ask is that you share your entry with a public post, so the word spreads.
Entries open on November 5, 2026 and close on February 21, 2027 at 11:59 pm Pacific. You can edit your entry until the deadline.
U.S. citizens 18 or older, wherever they live. We plan to open future years more widely.
Yes. Year one is for work you already have: from any year, shown before, entered in other competitions, even awarded elsewhere. If you have it, let us see it. It must still be yours, finished, handmade and available to exhibit if selected.
Three independent judges from the wider figurative art world, invited and paid by the Foundation. They judge every round, and we will name them on this site once they have agreed to serve.
You do, both ways, as at most competitions. Entering, being selected and winning are free. When you send your work, you also set up its return: a prepaid return label in the box, or a fine-art shipper booked for pickup.
The Rehumanism Prize · Year one
This prize is for the artists who try. Free to enter, and work you already have is welcome.
Who's the best painter you know? Tell them.
