Our Awards celebrate the successes and diversity of artistic projects in religious buildings throughout Britain. We also have an award for a book which explores the dialogue between the visual arts and religion.
The A+C Awards
The A+C Awards were set up in 2003 to celebrate the exceptional quality of art and scholarship in religious art and design in the UK; they are open to all faiths.
We have two Awards for Art in a Religious Context: one for a permanent commission within the building or grounds of a place of worship in the UK (£3,000); and one for a temporary installation or exhibition within the building or grounds of a place of worship in the UK (£3,000). The prize-money is split between the artist (£2,000) and the client (£1,000).
We also give a Book Award for an outstanding contribution to the public understanding of the relationship between faith and art (£1,000).
We’re delighted to announce the short lists for 2026:
For a permanent art commission within the building or grounds of a place of worship in the UK:
Aproxima / Joanna Kessel, Glasgow Wellspring Mosaic, 2025, Glasgow Cathedral
Tom Denny, East Window, 2025, St John's Tisbury, Wiltshire
Sophie Hacker, Elements Windows, 2025, the Chapel of St Anthony’s Priory, Durham
Che Lovelace, The River, Passage, Spirit and The Vision of the Birds, 2025, St James’s Piccadilly, London
Carolyn Partleton, Easter and Pentecost Copes, 2021, Wells Cathedral
For a temporary installation or exhibition within the building or grounds of a place of worship in the UK:
Nicola Anthony in collaboration with NOVAK UK, The Words That Bind Us, 2025, Durham Cathedral
Edward Bruce, Ringing the Changes, 2025, St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh
Gardner & Gardner, Peacemakers, 2022, Coventry Cathedral
Tobias Zehntner, Halo, 2025, All Saints Church Earls Barton
A special additional prize of £1000 will be announced at the prize-giving for a work of art that addresses contested heritage in a religious context.
The short list
Jonathan A. Anderson, The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art, University of Notre Dame Press, 2025
Kathryn R. Barush, Imaging Pilgrimage: Art as Embodied Experience, Bloomsbury, 2021
Jason Goroncy and Rod Pattenden (eds), Imagination in an Age of Crisis: Soundings from the Arts and Theology, Pickwick Publications, 2022
Marie-Louise Lillywhite, Reforming Art in Renaissance Venice, Cambridge University Press, 2025
Sofia Singler, The Religious Architecture of Alvar, Aino and Elissa Aalto, Lund Humphries, 2023
The prize-giving event will be on 23 April 2026 at St Giles Cripplegate, London
The judging panels for the Awards are:
For the Art Awards:
Bryan Biggs (Chair) – Director of Cultural Legacies, Bluecoat, Liverpool
Dr Maddie Hewitson – art historian specialising in nineteenth-century British art and a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Birmingham.
The Rt Revd Dr Rosemarie Mallett – Bishop of Croydon (Church of England)
Nigel Prince – Director of Artes Mundi, Cardiff
The Singh Twins – contemporary British artists, film-makers and curators
For the Book Award:
Chine McDonald (Chair) is a writer, broadcaster, author and director of the think tank, Theos
Julian Bell is a painter whose work includes a sequence of panels based on the Book of Genesis, and a writer about contemporary and historical art in books such as What is Painting? (2017).
Dr Susanna Avery-Quash is Senior Research Lead for Partnerships, Networks, Initiatives at The National Gallery, London.
Dr Aaron Rosen is Executive Director of The Clemente Course in the Humanities, Visiting Professor at King’s College London, and Founder of The Parsonage Gallery.
Dr Lieke Wijnia is an art historian and religious studies scholar, she works as curator, writer and researcher.
With thanks to the individual donors who have made the prizes for the Awards possible this year; And to our sponsors Ecclesiastical
Criteria
For the Art Awards:
The artwork submitted must be within the building or grounds owned or leased to an active faith community in the UK and completed in the last five years (since January 2020). The commission must be exemplary in its relationship to its context, its capacity to engage in the particular modes of worship and activities taking place within its environment. It can be in any medium.
For the Book Award:
The subject matter may relate to any major religious tradition and to any visual medium (including film, performance arts, design and architecture). Entries should be written in or translated into English. They may be in hardback, paperback or e-book.
Entries must have been published in the last four years (since June 2021).