FINAL Call for Entries: New England Art Club Annual Exhibition 2026

You have until 12 noon on Friday 20th March to submit your entries for the New England Art Club Annual Exhibition.

While the seriously committed will have submitted their entries already, there's still time to submit that work which you are pleased with.

Historically, the New English Art Club was founded by a group of artists dissatisfied with the entrenched attitudes of the Royal Academy

Today, its intent is spelt out by its President Patrick Cullen

At the heart of the NEAC is the search and propagation of meaningful, resonant art. It is committed to authenticity through the observation of life, as well as the task of articulating and communicating ideas with the beauty of skilful language.

FINAL Call for Entries: NEAC Annual Exhibition 2026

Entries from open artists are welcomed.

The NEAC Annual Exhibition is a showcase not only for its members but also for aspiring artists: with a history going back more than a hundred years, it is an opportunity for work to be seen alongside some of the best artists today.

I describe the process below. Here are the links to all relevant pages

• This is the official call for entries https://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/open-calls/new-english-art-club
• This is the official entry portal https://mallgalleries22.oess1.uk/
• you need to locate the correct exhibition as this is the entry portal for all FBA Exhibitions at the Mall Galleries
• UNFORTUNATELY the Full Details, Entry Terms & Conditions is a pop-up page and is NOT a downloadable PDF. Which means if you want to make a record for your files / notes - you have to copy and paste into Word - and then you can print it.

NEAC is not an art society which is afraid of colour!
(NEAC Annual Exhibition 2025: End of West Gallery)

If you want to know what NEAC is about, take a look at my pics of the 2025 Annual Exhibition

Last year, the exhibition 389 artworks which included a lot which were big to very big - which made the hang look very crowded to me

Guidelines re Sales and Pricing

You can see the nature and price of the artworks which sold in 2025 by right clicking HERE and opening in a new tab

• 60% were painted in oils
• just over 20% were landscapes and cityscapes
• just over 10% were portraits
• just over 10% were still life
• the remainder covered marine and coastal (4), other (1) and abstract (2)

In terms of sales, 17 of the 50 sales were by open artists - and the majority were by women. I think it not unlikely that most of the sales were heavily influenced by women too.

For the record, although I've not crunched the numbers for 2025, there are some guidelines for open artists if you want to achieve a sale

• sales drop off once you breach £1,500 which I've identified for a long time as an important threshold for sales (i.e. not a lot above this, and these are mostly by members)
• OPEN ARTISTS tend to do better in the £500-£1000 price range and pricing - and this is consistent across a number of the art societies exhibiting at the Mall Galleries

SGFA 105th Annual Exhibition + scope for a VERY BIG exhibition about Drawing at the Mall Galleries

It's interesting to see how many of the national art societies who are not members of the Federation of British Artists are now holding their annual exhibitions at the Mall Galleries.

To date we have:

• SBA - Society of Botanical Artists - regular exhibitor in the whole gallery on a biennial basis (next exhibition in 2027)
• SGFA - Society of Graphic Fine Art - regular exhibitor West and North Gallery (exhibition on at present - until 14 March
• SWA - Society of Women Artists - long term regular exhibitor on annual basis - next exhibition 23-27 June 2026
• UKCPS - UK Colour Pencil Society (for their 25th anniversary show only - next week 17 -25 March 2026

One wonders whether - at some point - some might become additional members of the Federation of British Artists. 

The Society of Graphic Fine Art - currently exhibiting this week - are a case in point.

The Society of Graphic Fine Art

It's other colloquial name is "The Drawing Society"although I think its lost sight of its drawing purpose in the narrative at the beginning of the current exhibition page on the Mall Galleries website (i.e. the word drawing is absent)

The Society of Graphic Fine Art ...exists to promote and exhibit original works of high quality in colour or black or white. This includes both traditional and contemporary media, which includes pencil, pen, watercolour, oils, charcoal, pastel and any of the forms of original printmaking.

I suggest the second paragraph needs to come first

A national society based in the UK, the Society of Graphic Fine Art is the only society dedicated to excellence in drawing and draughtsmanship, demonstrated by hand.

This art society was founded over 100 years ago in 1919 and now has 160 elected members who are professional standard artists from all areas of the art world who work in all drawing and printmaking media.  (I used to be one of them until I decided to not belong to any society while writing reviews of exhibitions.)

The Society was formed by students and teachers in the etching class at the London Central School of Arts. They wanted to establish a society that would

‘uphold and maintain the interests of all those forms of art that do not use colour as a form of expression’

which was another way of saying that drawing counts and, in one form or another, always will.

Their first exhibition in 1921 was supported by the RA and their first President was Sir Frank Brangwyn RA RE, the renowned muralist, painter, architect, illustrator and designer,

Current focus

Drawing excellence and draughtsmanship is still the focus of the society and its exhibition

The main criterion of membership, regardless of media discipline, is drawing excellence.

Nowadays, in addition to black and white work and traditional drawing skills, the society encourages the use of colour and non-figurative art.

105th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Graphic Fine Art

The entrance to the exhibition at the Mall Galleries

I visited the annual exhibition on Monday.

SGFA Exhibition: West and North Galleries of the Mall Galleries

Dates: 9 Mar 2026 - 14 Mar 2026 
Hours: 

Admission: FREE

I've uploaded my photographs of the artwork I saw to Facebook Albums

The Pileon = Facebook Comments now restricted to Followers

This is about a change of policy for Comments on my Making A Mark Facebook Page. It's also a reminder about what is and is not OK when commenting on my Facebook posts.

Last night at 6pm I published my review of the Commission episode called "The Winner's Programme"  at the end of the current series of Landscape Artist of the Year.

Before I went to bed last night, I had to add a comment to the post because of the incessant negative comments on my review made by people who, it appeared to me had:

• neither watched the programme
• nor read my review
• nor explained the reasons for their negativity.

I remember names. I know when people have commented before. Having written on social media for the last 20 years, I also know when people have no interest in art and/or are just trolling.

In short, my post was experiencing "a pileon" and I was starting my response....

This is the comment on my Facebook Post about the Commission

It then occurred to me, I'd also received more ignorant comments than usual on my review of the Final Kim Day wins Landscape Artist of Year 2026 as well.....

What is a "pileon"?

I checked out definitions for Pileons on Google. It's not a recognised word in the Oxford English Dictionary. I'm not even sure I'm spelling it right however Google AI recognised the colloquial term and was able to provide some informative context.

Review: £10,000 Commission for Landscape Artist of the Year 2025

The Commission Prize comes right after the we find out who won Landscape Artist of the Year for 2026 - see my post Kim Day wins Landscape Artist of Year 2026

This post is about the Commission:

• the brief for the Landscape Artist of the Year commission
• the Commission Programme - what's involved in understanding the brief and the constraints on the artist
• the Commission Painting produced by the winner of Landscape Artist of the Year 2023.

Before the Unveiling of the Commissioned Painting of Croagh Patrick

The Commission

It's probably worth saying that this is not a prize in the sense that a nice tidy sum of £10,000 lands in your bank account. 

First you have to work for it!

What you get in effect as a prize is an opportunity to EARN £10K through creating a painting - which everybody will want to comment on (and have done!)

The Challenge

The Commission is both like and unlike a commission an artist usually receives.

Usually it's only illustrators who get a tight brief and an absolute deadline for delivery - and given her day job is being a scenic artist for film and television Kim will have been very used to working on commission.

However most artists have some flexibility about deadlines (i.e. you say whether to accept it or not and when you can do it / deliver it) and briefs when doing a commission. This one you have

• a very specific subject - it has to be a painting about Croagh Patrick, the holy mountain associated with St Patrick in County Mayo on the west coast of Ireland
• a very specific deadline - for delivery to the National Gallery of Ireland and the filming of the Winner's Commission programme
• considerable latitude as to what you do and how you do it - within the context of media allowed in the competition - and the constraints of being followed around by a film crew the whole time

The winner will receive a taxable fee of £10,000 (ten thousand pounds) (“the Winner’s Prize Fee”) for creation, completion, and delivery of an artwork (“the Winner’s Prize Artwork”) of a landscape (“Winner’s Prize Location”) on dates and times and locations to be determined by the Producer at its absolute discretion. Extract from the Series 11 Terms and Conditions

The Brief

The first part of the Commission is a visit to the National Gallery of Ireland to meet Dr Brendan Rooney, Head Curator and Curator of Irish Art to:

• get the brief
• ask questions

Kim Day wins Landscape Artist of Year 2026

This review is about the Final of Series 11 of Landscape Artist of the Year 2026 which was won by Kim Day.

The Pods next to Falkirk Wheel

The Final of Series 11 of Landscape Artist of the Year (2026) was held at The Falkirk Wheel in Scotland last summer - and was broadcast on Sky Arts on Wednesday evening (followed straight afterwards by the programme about the commission for those wondering when that's on. My review of that will follow by Sunday).

Following this review of the Final, there are two more posts to go 

• Review of the Commission 
• Review of the Series as a whole.

About this post

As always the programme about the Final is always something of a bit of an odd show since

• 5 other participants are missing
• there is the need to recap the journey to the Final
• plus a more indepth profile of each artist AND
• the story of the three artists doing a commission between the semi-finals and the Final

Below you can read about

• Artists in the Final
• Venue: Where/when the Final was held plus observations about the subject
• Observations, Themes and Tips
• The Commissions
• The Final Painting
• The Winner

At the end you can find 

• all my reviews of previous programmes in this series at the end of this post. 
• how to read reviews of past series
• Plus how to apply for the NEXT series which will be filmed this summer in six heats in three places around the UK.

But before I begin.....

There's an aspect of this competition which is not explained well in the programme. I'm writing this now because I've noted a LOT of comments complaining about who won on FB.

• A lot of people appear to THINK that the winner is determined by the artwork they paint in the final (i.e. 4 hours). 
• This is not the case. 
• Unfortunately, what really happens seems to be spelt out less clearly than it needs to be given the number of people who think this.

To go back to the beginning, who wins a heat depends on:

• the submission AND
• the heat painting i.e. it is NEVER just about the heat painting.

Who wins the whole series depends on:

• the submission AND
• the heat painting AND
• the semi final painting AND
• the commission AND
• the painting in the Final i.e. it is NEVER just about the 4 hour painting in the Final.

Let me put it another way. WHY would they ask them to paint a commission - of what ever size they like - in however long they want to spend on it (within the time constraint of a week - I think) if it did not matter a LOT?!

Bottom line, the portfolio of paintings build up over the course of the series - from the application to the Final and provide a good insight into who an artist is and what they can do. 

One might characterise the programme as a long-running audition.

Almost without fail, I have observed almost all winners across many series as having a very clear style and proficiency in specific techniques and a range in terms of what they like to paint and how they like to paint - and a very stong portfolio built up over the course of the competition.

It's my strong belief that it is the OVERALL PORTFOLIO - with a particular emphasis on BOTH the commission and the heat painting which tells the Judges who is the best artist for the commission.

It's the most logical and best way to judge the overall competition.

I stand to be corrected, but that will involve the programme makers in providing a very simple and explicit explanation of the process that is used to judge the competition - and restate this in every episode for ALL the viewers as well as the participants.

It's just very sad that this is not communicated and explained simply and clearly to viewers. 

This approach is one of the principle reasons why I bang on and on and on about the importance of the submission.

Ditto same applies to the commission for the Final.  An outstanding commission will tip the balance and win the Final. I've seen it happen across both PAOTY and LAOTY a few times.

NOTE: My personal preference would be to skip the final painting of "something" which they all do together and make it a programme about three different commissions of a significant landscape similar to the commission - with no pod - as an audition. That way you can also keep the winner secret!

So - now we've got that straight - on with my review of THE FINAL AUDITION FOR THE COMMISSION and TWO ARTWORKS!

Artists in the Final

As if you need reminding, however this is relevant to all those think they know better than these artists