Art Competitions for Minneapolis Artists – Winter 2026–27

Winter is when a lot of next year gets decided. The plein air season is over, but calls for entry for spring and summer 2027 shows are opening now, and several close before February is out. Whether you paint in the studio, work en plein air, or somewhere in between, here’s what’s worth your attention between now and spring. As always, if you need professional photos of your artwork to meet a competition’s submission requirements, just let me know which show you’re targeting. I’ll provide image files that match their exact specs: resolution, color space, file format, dimensions, all taken care of. You make the art; I’ll make sure it looks its best in the submission. Many of the artists I’ve worked with have gone on to win major national and international awards, including James Vose, Steven J Levin, Mary Pettis, Andrew Sjodin, Patty Voje, Dyan Padgett, and Susan Steging Cook.

---

⚡ Open Right Now – Deadlines Through February

Over 60 Art Competition – 20th Annual

Final Deadline: October 30, 2026 | Online Artists Magazine’s competition recognizing painters age 60 and older, whether you’ve painted professionally for decades, discovered painting later in life, or made weekend at the easel a lifelong creative outlet. Top ten winners receive a $250 cash award and publication in the May/June 2027 issue. Over 60 Art Competition website

Studio Pintura Holiday Small Works Salon

Apply by: November 11, 2026 | Exhibition: November 28, 2026 – January 2, 2027 | Northrup King Building, Minneapolis A Northeast Minneapolis holiday tradition, juried by Studio Pintura. Enter up to four images for a $30 total fee. Paintings, drawings and fabric work can be up to 10″x12″ (the frame can be larger), and sculpture up to 10″x10″x12″. No photography or digital work for this one. Work must be framed or neatly gallery-wrapped, and the opening reception is Friday, December 4. Studio Pintura Small Works Salon website

Best in Show: Pets – 6th Annual

Early Bird Deadline: November 22, 2026 | Final Deadline: January 24, 2027 | Online Dogs, cats and every other animal that shares our lives, in any traditional painting or drawing medium. A $1,500 Best in Show prize, $500 category awards for Dogs, Cats and Other Pets, and 15 Honorable Mentions, with all 19 winners featured in the Sept/Oct 2027 issue of Artists Magazine. A portion of every entry fee goes to the ASPCA. Best in Show: Pets website

American Women Artists – 2027 National Juried Museum Exhibition

Entry Deadline: December 10, 2026 | Exhibition: May 8 – July 25, 2027 | Brookgreen Gardens, Murrells Inlet, SC AWA’s twelfth museum exhibition, Anna’s Garden: A New Generation of Women Artists, open to AWA members in good standing. Finalists are announced December 17. AWA shows carry real weight: Dyan Padgett won both the People’s Choice and Master Framer’s Awards at an AWA national juried show. American Women Artists website

Splash 28: The Best of Watercolor

Final Deadline: December 11, 2026 | Online The long-running watercolor competition from Artists Network and Watercolor Artist. Watercolor must be the dominant medium; gouache, casein and egg tempera on paper also qualify, but acrylic does not. Top three winners receive $2,000, $1,000 and $500, and 100+ finalists are published in The Best of Watercolor (Summer 2027). Splash website

Artists to Watch – 6th Annual (Ages 16+)

Super Early Bird Deadline: December 13, 2026 | Early Bird: February 14, 2027 | Final: April 11, 2027 | Online Artists Magazine’s competition built specifically for emerging artists: students, newer painters, and anyone early in their journey. Artists who’ve already won major national awards aren’t eligible, which makes this one of the few competitions designed for a first real win rather than another line on an established resume. A Grand Prize plus first, second and third place in each of five categories, with all 16 winners featured in the Nov/Dec 2027 issue. Artists to Watch website

AcrylicWorks 14: The Best of Acrylic

Early Bird Deadline: December 27, 2026 | Final Deadline: February 28, 2027 | Online Artists Network’s annual competition for acrylic painters. Top three winners receive $2,000, $1,000 and $500 plus an in-depth profile in The Best of Acrylic (Fall 2027), and 100+ finalists are published alongside them. Ten Honorable Mention winners get a $50 gift card and a one-year membership. AcrylicWorks website

Salon Art Prize – 16th Annual (formerly PleinAir Salon)

Monthly deadlines at the end of each month through spring 2027 | Online Two $15,000 Grand Prizes, one for the cover of PleinAir Magazine and one for Fine Art Connoisseur, with over $65,000 in total prizes. Despite the name, all painting styles and subjects qualify, not just plein air. Monthly winners are automatically entered into the Annual Competition, and entering by the 15th of the month gets a 25% discount. Salon Art Prize website

---

🏆 National Competitions Opening in the Next Few Months

These follow a regular yearly cycle. Where the 2027 prospectus isn’t posted yet, the dates below are based on last year’s actual dates. Check each website for the confirmed details before entering.

New Salem Museum & Academy (NSMA) International Painting Competition

Entry Deadline: Expected January–February 2027 (est.; the last two deadlines were January 15, 2025 and February 15, 2026) | New Salem, MA One of the highest-value prizes on this list: a $35,000 Acquisition Award, plus a $5,000 Small Work Acquisition Award for paintings under 22″ on the longest side and a $2,500 People’s Choice Award, for contemporary realist painting in any medium. The 2026 competition drew nearly 1,600 entries from 44 countries for 63 finalist spots. The winning painting joins NSMA’s permanent collection, and the grand prize is chosen by the finalists themselves. Entries are judged from one high-resolution photo showing the full painting edge to edge, so the photo is the entire first round. NSMA Competition website

Oil Painters of America (OPA) – 36th National Exhibition

Submissions: Expected to open around November 1, 2026, with a deadline in early March 2027 (est.; last year ran November 1 – March 6) | Location TBA OPA’s flagship national show, open to OPA members living in North America. Last year’s show drew roughly 1,800 submissions for 215 places. Membership is $80 a year, and 2027 membership enrollment opens November 1, 2026, so you can join and enter in the same window. Oil Painters of America exhibitions website

American Women Artists – Annual Online Juried Exhibition

Entry Window: Expected mid-January to mid-March 2027 (est.; last year ran January 12 – March 13) | Online Open to women artists 18 and older in the U.S. and Canada at every level of AWA membership, and non-members can join before the deadline to qualify. The 2026 show awarded over $10,000 in cash, and accepted work stays on view online for a full year. American Women Artists website

Artists Magazine 44th Annual Art Competition

Entry Window: Expected to open late December 2026, with the lowest fees through mid-February 2027 (est.; last year opened December 20, with a February 14 super early bird and a June 11 final deadline) | Online A well-respected national competition with $17,500 in cash prizes across five categories: Landscape/Cityscape, Animal & Wildlife, Still Life & Interior, Portrait & Figure, and Abstract & Experimental. Winners and honorable mentions are featured in the Jan/Feb issue of Artists Magazine the following year. Artists Magazine Annual Art Competition website

Art Renewal Center (ARC) Salon – 19th International Competition

Entry Window: March 1 – June 10, 2027 | Online + International Exhibitions The largest competition in the world for representational realist painters, with over $130,000 in cash awards and international recognition through partnerships with major galleries, museums, and publications. Categories include Figurative, Portraiture, Imaginative Realism, Drawing, Landscape, Still Life, Plein Air, Animals, Sculpture, and a Teen category. Art Renewal Center (ARC) Salon website

NOAPS – Best of America, 37th National Exhibition

Application Window: Expected ~April–July 2027 (est.) | Location TBA NOAPS members only, with over $35,000 in cash and sponsor awards. Max size 1,200 square inches excluding frame. Dates for the 37th cycle weren’t posted yet at the time of this update. NOAPS website

Minted Design Challenges

Rolling competitions year-round | Online (minted.com) A little different from a traditional juried show: Minted runs design challenges where community votes and expert curation select winners. Winners receive a $200 cash prize and their designs are sold as fine art prints, stationery, and home goods, with 6–10% royalties on all sales. Minted handles production, fulfillment, and customer service entirely. Minted Design Challenges website

---

🎨 Minnesota Art Competitions

Studio Pintura Juried Floral Art Exhibition – 10th Annual

Exhibition: Expected to open March 2027 (est.; the 9th ran March 20 – April 25, 2026) | Northrup King Building, Minneapolis A spring tradition at Studio Pintura and one of the few juried shows anywhere devoted entirely to florals, with 30+ artists in recent years. It’s an open call, so watch for the entry details over the winter, and see the Small Works Salon above if you want something on the wall sooner. Studio Pintura Floral Exhibition website

Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Competition

Next Registration: Expected ~May 2027 (est.) Minnesota’s largest juried art exhibition, with over 300 pieces selected from thousands of submissions across the state. Registration has typically opened in early May. Worth setting a reminder now. Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Competition website

Plein Air Grand Marais

2027 dates not yet posted | Grand Marais, MN One of the best events on Minnesota’s North Shore, running since 2008, with over $7,000 in awards across Competition and Open classes. Organized by Outdoor Painters of Minnesota. Check back in late winter for next year’s dates. Plein Air Grand Marais website

Prairie Lakes Plein Air

2027 dates not yet posted | Otter Tail County, MN Art education, exhibition, and competition in the lakes country of West-Central Minnesota, open to artists of all skill levels. Prairie Lakes Plein Air website

Red Wing Arts Plein Air

2027 dates not yet posted | Red Wing, MN Twenty years running as of 2026. Artists paint recognizable scenes around Red Wing and along the Mississippi River bluffs. Red Wing Arts Plein Air website

Into Nature Plein Air Competition

2027 dates not yet posted | White Bear Lake, MN Open to all experience levels, a low-pressure entry point for painters who want their first competition experience. All accepted artwork is displayed in the Ford Family Gallery. Into Nature Plein Air Competition website

---

🖌️ Midwest Plein Air – Worth Planning for Now

The 2026 Midwest plein air season has wrapped, and most 2027 dates will be announced in late winter and spring. One is worth marking on the calendar now.

Plein Air: A Paint Cedarburg Event

Event Dates: June 5–12, 2027 | Registration Opens: January 15, 2027 | Cedarburg, WI Wisconsin’s largest plein air gathering, non-juried and open to artists of any skill level, with over $8,500 in prizes across several award categories. Registration is capped at the first 165 artists rather than closing on a deadline, so it’s first-come-first-served starting January 15. If you want in, mark that date rather than the event date. Plein Air: A Paint Cedarburg Event website

---

🎯 Pro Tips for Entering Art Competitions (and What Makes a Strong Jury Image)

Submitting your work to juried exhibitions can be exciting and a little intimidating. A few things consistently separate successful entries from the ones that don’t make it through, and several of them come down to the photo itself, not the painting.

Why Your Jury Image Matters More Than You Think

For an online submission, the juror never sees your actual painting. They see a file on a screen. That file is your entry, in every practical sense, not a stand-in for it. A juror moving through hundreds of entries forms an impression in seconds, and whatever the photo gets wrong reads as a flaw in the painting itself, not in the photo.

What Jurors Notice First, Whether or Not They Name It

Color accuracy and even lighting register almost instantly, even to someone moving fast through a queue. A slightly warm cast, a hot spot in one corner, or a shadow along one edge changes how the whole piece reads, and it happens below the level of a juror consciously thinking “the lighting is uneven.” They just move on.

The Mistakes That Show Up Most Often

A few problems come up again and again in competition submissions: glare across a varnished passage that reads as a blown-out patch of white, a color shift that mutes or oversaturates part of the painting, and keystoning, a subtle trapezoidal distortion from a camera that wasn’t quite square to the canvas, that skews the proportions just enough to look faintly, unaccountably off.

Consistency Matters When You’re Submitting More Than One Piece

If a competition allows multiple entries, jurors often see your work as a set. Images shot at different times, in different light, or with a different camera can make a genuinely consistent body of work look uneven, not because the paintings vary, but because the photography does. That inconsistency reads as the artist’s, even when the actual cause was several different photo sessions over the years.

Follow the Rules Exactly

Every competition has specific requirements for file size, resolution, color space, dimensions, framing, and labeling. Submitting the wrong format, even with excellent work, can get your entry disqualified before a juror ever sees it.

Submit Your Strongest, Most Cohesive Work

If you’re submitting multiple pieces, choose ones that feel like they belong together, even across different subjects. Think about what impression they create as a group.

Don’t Wait Until Deadline Day

Slow servers, forgotten login passwords, last-minute file issues: it all happens. Give yourself a few days of buffer, especially for major shows. And if you need new photos, book them early. December fills up fast with holiday work.

Keep a Submission Log

Track where you’ve submitted each piece, what images you used, and the results. Patterns emerge over time: which shows are a good fit, which aren’t, how your acceptance rate is trending.

Rejection Is Just Part of the Process

Even the most decorated artists get turned down regularly. A rejection doesn’t mean the work isn’t good. It means it wasn’t the right fit for that particular show that year. Keep making work and keep entering.

---

Know of a competition I should add to this list? Send it my way. I’m always looking to help artists find the right opportunities. Note: Several 2027 competition dates are estimated from last year’s cycles and hadn’t been officially announced at the time of this update. Check each organization’s website for the confirmed prospectus before entering.