Art News: Turner Prize 2026, the Shortlist, the Exhibition and the Winner

The Turner Prize 2026 exhibition is open at MIMA, the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, until 29 March 2027, and admission is free. MIMA is part of Teesside University, which makes this the first Turner Prize held in a university setting. The winner will be announced at a ceremony at MIMA on Thursday 10 December and receives £25,000; the other three shortlisted artists receive £10,000 each.

The four shortlisted artists

Simeon Barclay, born in Huddersfield in 1975, is shortlisted for The Ruin, an hour-long spoken-word performance with live percussion and horn that draws on his upbringing in the town. It was commissioned by the Roberts Institute of Art and performed at the ICA in London, The Hepworth Wakefield and New Art Exchange in Nottingham.

Kira Freije is shortlisted for Unspeak the Chorus, her first major solo exhibition, at The Hepworth Wakefield. Her sculptures are made from metal, fabric and found materials, with faces cast in stone.

Marguerite Humeau, born in Cholet in France in 1986 and based in London, is shortlisted for Torches, shown at ARKEN Museum of Contemporary Art in Copenhagen and HAM Helsinki Art Museum: sculptures presented with looped light and sound. She won the Zurich Art Prize in 2017.

Tanoa Sasraku, born in Plymouth in 1995, is shortlisted for Morale Patch at the ICA. She makes sculptural objects and works on paper, trained at the Royal Academy Schools, and is already in the Arts Council Collection and the Government Art Collection.

MIMA on Centre Square, Middlesbrough. Photo: Stinglehammer, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The shortlist at auction

Artists at this stage rarely have an auction history, and of the four only Humeau has a work on record. 35000 A.C (Sphinx Death Mask), a bronze of 2018 in an edition of seven, was offered by Sotheby's in London in December 2019 in a sale called The Blazing World; the published listing shows no estimate or price. We found no auction records for Barclay, Freije or Sasraku, whose work so far sells through galleries.

Past winners

The prize began in 1984. Rachel Whiteread won in 1993, Damien Hirst in 1995, Gillian Wearing in 1997, Chris Ofili in 1998 and Steve McQueen in 1999, the generation in our recap of the British artists who defined the 1990s. Grayson Perry won in 2003, and his prints, tapestries and pots come to the market regularly.

Grayson Perry's tapestry and vases in his exhibition at La Monnaie de Paris, January 2019. Photo: Arroser, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

If you own a work by a Turner Prize winner or nominee and are thinking of selling, send us photographs for a free valuation. There is no obligation to sell, and we act for you rather than for the saleroom.

Cover: MIMA, the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. Photo: Francis Hannaway, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.