General Prize Information

The Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize™ is Australia’s richest prize for natural history art, boasting a total prize pool of $114,500. Each year entries are invited in three categories: Paintings, Works on Paper and Sculpture & Objects.

Exhibition

The exhibition of winners and finalists in The Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize™ are shown each year in the Special Exhibition Gallery at the South Australian Museum from mid July for approximately seven weeks.

Entry is $8 for adults, $5 for concession card holders, which includes a full colour catalogue. Children under 16 are free without a catalogue. Additional catalogues cost $5.

Touring

Winning and highly commended entries travel to the National Archives of Australia from September to November each year.

Entries

Artworks can be entered in the following categories:

A. Paintings (Oil, Acrylic or mix)

B. Works on Paper (eg Watercolour, Pastel, Gouache)
[Photographs /digital works /ink jet prints not accepted]

C. Sculpture and Objects

Plus

The Waterhouse Youth Art Prize for artists aged 16-25.

Cost of entry

Online entry:

$33 inc GST per entry in Categories A, B & C
$22 inc GST for Youth Art Prize

Postal entries:

$38.50 inc GST per entry in Categories A, B & C
$27.50 inc GST for Youth Art Prize

One entry permitted per person per category.

Awards

The Waterhouse Art Prize $50,000 (acquisitive)
People's Choice $5,000

For each category above:
1st $10,000
2nd $5,000
3rd $2,500

For the Waterhouse Youth Art Prize
1st $4000
2nd $2000
3rd $1000

Sizes of Works

Paintings and Works on Paper should not exceed 2m x 2m.

Sculptures and Objects must fit through a standard doorway when assembled (2m x 0.9m), with no dimension greater than 2m.

For more information, visit the Rules or Entry Form sections.

Judges in 2012

The selection of the winners will be made by the following five judges:

Alisa Bunbury
Curator of Prints & Drawings, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Ingrid Kellenbach
CEO, Adelaide Central School of Art

Jane Llewellyn
Visual Arts Writer, The Adelaide Review

Dr Jane Lomax-Smith
Chair, South Australian Museum Board

Angela Valamanesh
Artist, Member of Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council

These judges will also judge the finalists' selection with five others in an online process. All entries for selecting both finalists and winners are done so without knowledge of the artists' names.

About Frederick George Waterhouse

Frederick Waterhouse was born 25 August 1815 near London. He worked at the British Museum as a zoologist and became the first curator of the emerging South Australian Museum, which opened in January 1862.

Waterhouse was an avid collector of Australia's fauna accompanying J. McD. Stuart across the Australian continent in 1861 to collect and document its fauna. He collected insects, reptiles, birds, mammals and plants. He discovered 40 new species of fish off the South Australian coastline. He died on 7th September 1898 and was buried at Magill.

He had five sons and one daughter. His great, great grandson is Dr Andrew Thomas, Australia's only Astronaut and Cosmonaut. A river in the Northern Territory and several natural history species commemorate the Waterhouse name.