Nominations for the 2016 Sobey Art Award open on Thursday, February 4, 2016. The Award will distribute a total of 100,000 CDN to Canadian artists aged 40 and under who have exhibited professionally within the last 18 months, including a top award of 50,000 CDN, a 10,000 CDN prize to each of the other short-listed artists, and 500 CDN to each of the other long-listed artists.
The Award’s 2016 long list of nominees will be announced in April and the short list will be released in June. An exhibition of works by the five short-listed artists will be presented at the National Gallery of Canada from October 6, 2016 to February 5, 2017. The winner of the 2016 Sobey Art Award will be announced at the Gallery during a gala event in November 2016.
The 2016 curatorial jury panel, chaired by National Gallery of Canada’s Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Josée Drouin-Brisebois, will be composed of one distinguished representative from each of Canada’s five regions: the Atlantic Provinces, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies and the North, and the West Coast and Yukon, and will include for the first time one international juror. They will review all nominations and establish the long and short lists as well as the winner of the Award.
In 2002, the Sobey Art Foundation created the largest art award for a Canadian artist aged 40 or under. The National Gallery of Canada became the organizing institution for the Sobey Art Award in December 2015.
For more information and nomination guidelines please visit gallery.ca/sobey, or write to:
Sobey Art Award
c/o National Gallery of Canada
380 Sussex Drive
P.O. Box 427, Station A
Ottawa, ON K1N 9N4
About the Sobey Art Award process
The National Gallery of Canada will accept nominations for the 2016 Sobey Art Award from recognized agents and institutions. The curatorial jury panel will oversee the award selection process. From the complete list of nominated artists, the jurors will create a long list of five artists from each region. Their choices will be based on professional knowledge of their regions and of the national and international art scenes. The panel will then choose one representative from each region to be included on the national short list and in the exhibition. The panel will also select the final award winner.
About the Sobey Art Foundation
The Sobey Art Foundation was established in 1981 with a mandate to carry on the work of entrepreneur and business leader, the late Frank H. Sobey, to collect and preserve representative examples of 19th and 20th century Canadian art. In one of the finest private collections of its kind, the Sobey Art Foundation has assembled outstanding examples from Canadian Masters such as Cornelius Krieghoff, Tom Thomson, and J.E.H. MacDonald. The collection is housed in an intimate setting at Crombie House, the former home of Frank Sobey and his wife Irene, in Pictou County, Nova Scotia. Tours are regularly scheduled throughout the summer months and by appointment year round.
About the National Gallery of Canada
The National Gallery of Canada is home to the most important collections of historical and contemporary Canadian art. The Gallery also maintains Canada’s premier collection of European Art from the 14th to the 21st century, as well as important works of American, Asian, and Indigenous Art and renowned international collections of prints, drawings, and photographs. In 2015, the National Gallery of Canada established the Canadian Photography Institute, a global multidisciplinary research center dedicated to the history, evolution, and future of photography. Created in 1880, the National Gallery of Canada has played a key role in Canadian culture for well over a century. Among its principal missions is to increase access to excellent works of art for all Canadians. For more information, visit gallery.ca and follow us on Twitter.
For all media enquiries, please contact:
Josée-Britanie Mallet, Senior Media and Public Relations Officer, National Gallery of Canada
T + 1 613 990 6835/bmallet [at] gallery.ca
Bernard Doucet, Sobey Art Foundation
T + 1 902 752 8371 ext. 2301/C + 1 902 921 1755/bernard.doucet [at] sobeys.com
