POETS OF PENOLA ACQUISITIVE ART PRIZE | 2025 Competition
The NEW 2025 Poets of Penola Acquisitive Art Prize, is open to all emerging and established artists throughout Australia. The competition will be expanded to include two other prominent Penola poets, Adam Lindsay Gordon and William Henry Ogilvie along with John Shaw Neilson. The general format of the competition will remain the same, however the work of these poets will provide fresh inspiration for your artwork.
The new title of this competition will be Poets of Penola Acquisitive Art Prize.
If you’ve entered before, you already know the rewards that go with being part of this event. For those considering entering for the first time, it really is a wonderful opportunity to be part of a dynamic Festival whilst acknowledging the Poets’ place in Penola’s history.
The 2025 prize money for the Poets of Penola Acquisitive Art Prize is $12,000, made possible with the generous sponsorship of The Mary Skene Kidman Fund.
Entries Close: 4.00pm Friday 9th May 2025
(Artworks must be delivered in person or consigned to Still Water Studio, 45 Church Street, Penola SA 5277 by 4.00pm Friday 9th May 2025)
Entry Fee is $30 per artwork
(cash please)
and submitted with the entry form below.
John Shaw Neilson
Neilson was born on February 22nd, 1872, in a slab hut owned by his parents, John and Margaret (nee McKinnon), on Racecourse Road, Penola. He was the first of six children. He spent the first nine years of his life in Penola, during which time he came to know well the surrounding countryside with its swamps, trees and abundant bird life. He attended the school in Robe Street (now Riddoch Street) for about fifteen months, from 1880 until his parents moved in 1881 to the block they’d selected at Minimay. In 1885, he briefly resumed his formal education, but left at the age of fourteen to work full-time with his father.
Adam Lindsay Gordon
Gordon was just over 20 years old when he arrived in Adelaide on 14 November 1853. He immediately obtained a position in the South Australian mounted police and was stationed at Penola.
On 4 November 1855, he resigned from the force and took up horse-breaking in the south-eastern district of South Australia. The interest in horse-racing, which he had shown as a youth in England, was continued in Australia.
In 1857, he met the Rev. Julian Tenison Woods, who lent him books and talked poetry with him. He then had the reputation of being “a good steady lad and a splendid horseman”.
William Henry Ogilvie
Ogilvie was an Australian bush poet who captured the spirit of outback life in his work. His poems celebrate the rugged beauty of the landscape, the hardiness of its people, and the unique challenges and joys of a life lived close to nature. He wrote during a time when Australia was forging its national identity, and his work contributed to the growing appreciation for the country’s distinctive character and heritage.
Ogilvie’s poetry is characterized by its straightforward language, rhythmic flow, and vivid imagery. He often employs traditional ballad forms and rhyming schemes, making his work easily accessible and memorable.
The Poets of Penola (PoP) Specifications
A person entering the POP Prize must include in the entry an artwork that meets the following specifications:
it is an original two-dimensional (2D) artwork by the entrant,
its subject and inspiration is specifically from the poetry of John Shaw Neilson, Adam Lindsay Gordon or William Henry Ogilvie,
it is professionally framed and presented ready for hanging,
it is a maximum size, including the mount and frame, of 1000mm x 1000mm squared.
it has a copy of the completed entry form securely attached to the back.
Guidelines for Penola Coonawarra Arts Festival Competitions
The Penola Festival Association Inc. is a voluntary, non-profit organisation, the Festival has a legal status as an incorporated body and undertakes the management of the annual Penola Coonawarra Arts Festival. The association has a committee made up of only volunteers.
The Festival has subcommittees that orchestrate key festival areas, one of which is ‘competitions’. No individual members of a competition subcommittee are able to enter the competition. This enables individual members of the wider committee/s to be permitted to enter such competitions, thus encouraging artists/authors to sit and contribute on the wider volunteer committee.
The purpose of the above guideline is to remove any perceived or real risk of conflict of interest. In further efforts to ensure there is no perceived or real risk and to ensure judging impartiality and credibility the following guidelines apply to all festival competitions.
All individual competition terms and conditions are adhered to.
Judges will be independent of the Penola Coonawarra Arts Festival.
Where there is a sole judge, they will reside outside of the Limestone Coast area.
Where there is a judging panel, more than 50% of the judges will reside outside of the Limestone Coast area.
All competitions entries are viewed and judged without the disclosure of the artist/author of the works known to the judge. Therefore the judge will have no knowledge of the artist/author until after the judging process is completed.
About The Mary Skene Kidman Fund
Mary Skene Kidman b 1907, was a local artist who had a strong love for art and her community. She named her property Still Water.
Thanks to the philanthropy and generosity of one local family, the Art Prize will be able to continue for at least another five years, if not longer. Penola has a long history of involvement in the arts, and the local benefactor of the Fund wanted to ensure that the Art Prize would remain the major drawcard event within the annual Penola Coonawarra Arts Festival, as well as contribute financially to support the new art space in Penola.
“I wanted to make sure that Penola continued to be an inspiring place where community arts and culture are supported and valued by as many people as possible.”
Rick Paltridge of the Mary Skene Kidman Fund.
