MAKING A MARK: Call for Entries: The Pastel Society Annual Exhibition 2027

Thursday, August 20, 2026

Call for Entries: The Pastel Society Annual Exhibition 2027

Call for Entries: Pastel Society Annual Exhibition 2027

The Call for Entries for the 128th Exhibition by the Pastel Society in January 2027 has been published on the Mall Galleries website.

Artists working in pastel and contemporary dry media are invited to submit their work for the Pastel Society Annual Exhibition 2027

This post summarises what you need to know.

Submissions are ONLINE ONLY and
open from 17 August to 20 November 2026

Benefits of Exhibiting with The Pastel Society

This is an OPEN ART EXHIBITION. If you submit and are selected for the exhibition your artwork will be

included in the catalogue
seen by visitors to the Mall Galleries - and it gets a LOT of visitors
viewed online via the Mall Galleries website and that of the Pastel Society - before, during and after the Exhibition
eligible for a number of prizes & awards - and some have significant cash awards (see below)if you want to become a member, you first need to get exhibited via the open entry
may well sell - but ONLY if you pay attention to what I have to tell you below about pricing and sales!!

Pastel Society | Annual Exhibition 2027 | Key Facts and Dates

What drew me to the Pastel Society was the thought of being surrounding by other people fascinated by dry media in particular
Curtis Holder

Venue: Mall Galleries, The Mall, London
Exhibition Dates: Wednesday 27th January - Saturday 6th February 2027
Private View (invite only): Wednesday 27th January 2027 - 5pm to 8pm, official opening at 6:30pm

Submissions: ONLINE ONLY and open until 12 noon Friday 20 November 2026
Notification of selection: Friday 4th December 2026, 12 noon
Receiving Day (if selected): Saturday 16th January 2027 10am to 5pmCollection of unsold work: Thursday 11 February 2027 10am to 5pm
Awards and Prizes - see listing near the end of this post

One of the walls in the Pastel Society's Annual Exhibition in 2026

Call for Entries

What you read below is most - but not all - the terms and conditions of entry and information about what and artist must and must not do.

It's down to you to read the Full Details, Entry Terms & Conditions

Find out more about how to enter:

Open Calls - Pastel Society on the Mall Galleries website. This also contains the full and official terms and conditions
Exhibition Contact: exhibitions@mallgalleries.com

and BELOW.....

Who is eligible to enter?

This is an OPEN exhibition and is not limited to work by members.
There is also no restriction of where you live. It's open to artists in the UK, EU, and outside the EU
Any artist over 18 may submit.

What media is acceptable for entries?

All types of pastel including: soft pastel, hard pastel, oil pastel, ink pastel, water-based pastel, conté crayons or sticks, sanguine, and other dry mediums that are similar in their application including charcoal, chalk, and pencil.
Mixed media and three-dimensional works are welcome where pastel or another dry media is the primary medium.
HOWEVER.....

ALL work that is submitted must have a full description of the media used and any process which has been employed in the finished work beyond drawing and painting, e.g. printing, photography.
Please note that failure to do this may result in unnecessary rejection on the grounds that work deserves to be judged on a like for like basis and because any buyer should be made aware of what they are buying.

Bottom line - no sleight of hand! This exhibition emphasises the use of dry media and the expertise of the artist in using it.

the monochrome wall in the 2026 exhibition

What can you enter?

Dimensions: Works should be no larger than 2.4m along the longest dimension.
Maximum of six works each BUT only a maximum of four works per artist may be selected.
Work MUST be

an original creation by the artist (i.e. copyright belongs to the artist and not to some artwork or entity you may have copied)
have been completed within two years prior to the exhibition and
not have been exhibited previously at Mall Galleries (in any exhibition)

What does it cost to enter? PLUS a new bonus!

There is

a non-refundable submission fee of £22 per work - which includes FREE admission to the exhibition (I've never heard of artists having to pay to enter an exhibition they are in!)
or £14.50 per work for artists aged 35 or under.

Artists often complain about submission fees. However these submission fees support the not-for-profit programme at Mall Galleries which is home to the Federation of British Artists which is a visual arts charity, (Registered Charity Number 200048).

In addition, the Mall Galleries have partnered with the Visual Artists Association to offer a Free Artist Resource Pack to all entrants. This includes

'The Artist's Guide to Selling Art on Instagram’ (PDF) and
'Instagram for Art Careers’ (Video Masterclass).
Entrants will receive instructions to download the Artist Resource Pack upon notification of selection

SUBSCRIBE IF YOU LIKE 'MAKING A MARK'

- and want to keep up with my reviews

and get an email to your inbox every time I publish

All work MUST be for sale + pricing, commission and VAT

Once you have submitted an entry, you cannot make a private sale of the artwork without being charged commission on it
The price you notify is

the selling price
this should include the commission paid to the Gallery of 45% + VAT @20% on the commission.
Commission is charged on the total price paid for an the artwork before, during, or as a result of the exhibition.

There is a minimum price per work of £400.
ALWAYS price just below a significant price eg £950 not £1,000 or £1100.

(Personally I think the minimum price is too high in the current market and the Society would really benefit from starting at £300 or £350 as this end of the price range is where a LOT of spontaneous sales are made. Increasing the minimum price will NOT increase the value of sales below £500 as it's more likely to reduce the volume of sales)

View of a lot of the West Gallery
- note the sizes, note the framing

TIP: The REAL COST of your submission

....entirely depends on:

how good your work is;
how much you want to become a member of this society
Whether you've done your homework on the full costs of entry - including commission, VAT on the sale + VAT on the commission
whether you've reviewed the available data (in my charts and posts - see below) about typical price ranges and levels of sales.
how discriminating you are at submitting works with a good chance of being exhibited - and if you have not seen the exhibition in person I recommend you check out my posts at the end about past exhibitions as I include a lot of photos of the exhibition. I also have albums of photos of the artwork on my Facebook Page

How do you enter?

Register or log into the Open Exhibition Submission System (OESS) to submit before Friday 20November 2026
Upload your image/s in JPEG or PNG format and under 5MB.

One image per submission must be submitted, showing the complete work.
An optional two additional images per work may be submitted, showing details.

The judges will make their decision based on these images, so please ensure that photographs are accurate and show work at its best.

If selected from the digital entry, how must an artwork be presented for hanging?

All work MUST be framed and glazed with picture glass UNLESS a dispensation is applied for and accepted by the Society and Mall Galleries in special circumstances.
Frames MUST be capable of being mirror plated with 12mm (size 6 screws) (see my blog post How to hang a painting - using mirror plates. This explains what will happen to attach your frame to the wall. Do NOT attach your own mirror plates.)
Frames should be plain and simple. I highly recommend neutral colours - artists lose sales because of badly chosen frames
Metal frames, unprotected glass edges and clip frames are inadmissible.
All fittings and fixings MUST be removed from the back of frames, e.g. D-rings and picture wire.

A small works wall in 2026

How are works selected

The works for exhibition are selected by a committee formed of members of the Society. The selection will be made entirely online and so the image of the work must be representative of the original work to ensure that a fair selection has been made.

IMPORTANT: The Society reserves the right to refuse any selected work that

does not arrive on time,
varies substantially from the image submitted
or is poorly framed.

If withdrawn, work will need to be collected from Mall Galleries by the artist at their expense.

How to deliver artwork - ONLY for those who art is pre-selected online

There will be a sign to show you
where to go!

ONLY If pre-selected from the online submission for hanging, artwork should be delivered

to the gallery's rear entrance at Mall Galleries, 17 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5BD (down the spiral staircase to the basement)
unwrapped with the relevant form and labels, which are downloadable upon notification of selection.
AND all packaging must be taken away at the point of delivery.

The information about how to enter includes a list of couriers who regularly deliver artwork to the Mall Galleries.

You need to pick one who will unwrap your artwork for delivery, retain the packaging and wrap and return it to you if not sold.

You can also view my review of art couriers on this page UK & Ireland Art Movers & Couriers & Fine Art Transport Services of my Art Business Info. for Artists website

Prizes and Awards 2026

Different art societies take quite different approaches to their prizes and awards,

The Pastel Society has LOTS of prizes and awards, with a variety of benefits if you win one. See orange block on this page. These are presented at the Private View.

FINAL TIPS for potential entrants

ESSENTIAL Read Full Details, Entry Terms & Conditions for entry on the Mall Galleries website carefully

Application process

Don't leave registration and uploading your image to the last minute.
Measure your work precisely
Make sure the framed size does not render the work ineligible.
make sure you're not shooting yourself in the foot with a poor choice of colour frame - lean towards neutral and you maximise the number of potential buyers

Pricing (see also chart below)

Smaller works priced around £500 or less sell more easily (i.e. impulse buy)

there is a minimum price of £400. (Personally I think this is too high for very small works they could go lower still.)

Inexperienced artists - who are ignorant of market prices - very often overprice - which can make exhibiting art a very expensive hobby.
More affordable art is more likely to sell - particularly at times when there is a cost of living crisis.
Most non-members' paintings sell for less than £1,000
Few non-oil paintings sell for more than £2,000 at the Mall Galleries - so don't be silly!

UNLESS you already have a VERY strong following for pricing above £2K
and/or create excellent large pastels

This is a chart of the sales at the Pastel Society's Open Exhibition 2025. I got my numbers by going through the data on sales available from the online exhibition.

dark red are PS members
pink is for open entrants (5 artworks sold above £1,000 in 2025 - so think on!)

Analysis of the number of artworks sold by price range

in The Pastel Society Annual Exhibition 2025

MAKING A MARK

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