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The Kingston Prize is a biennial national competition for contemporary portraits of Canadians by Canadian artists.

The mission is to encourage and reward the creation of contemporary portraits by Canadian artists, through a biennial competition for paintings and drawings.

To be eligible, an entry must be a painting or drawing of a specific Canadian person, produced within 24 months of the closing date, and must be based upon a meeting between artist and subject. The competition is not limited by age or professional status, and provides an opportunity for artists to develop new approaches to portraiture free of some of the constraints of portrait commissions.

The distinguished jury chooses the 30 finalists for the exhibition, and later awards the Kingston Prize and two Honourable Mentions. The Prize of $20,000 is presented by the W. Garfield Weston Foundation. At each gallery where the exhibition is shown, there is a People’s Choice Prize based upon ballots submitted by visitors.

The 2011 competition, the fourth in the series, attracted 450 entries including artists from every province. The exhibition was shown in Gananoque ON, at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and in Drummondville QC. Total attendance at the ROM was 61,754 visitors.

If you would like to participate in the 2013 competition, please visit the Rules of the Competition page.

The Kingston Prize is made possible by these organizations and companies: