LONDON.- Now in its 26th year, The Sunday Times Watercolour Competition champions the beauty and diversity of the medium of watercolour. Generously sponsored by Smith & Williamson, the competition celebrates all works produced in water‐based mediums, whether abstract or figurative, contemporary or traditional. It offers a total of £18,000 to artists who demonstrate a high level of skill and creativity.

Winner of the First Prize of £10,000, David Forster (born 1962, based in Edinburgh) has exhibited in group and solo shows across the UK. He has two artworks selected for exhibition this year, with the First Prize awarded to Not long afterwards the country was overrun by war (Port Edgar, Scotland). His intensely wrought landscape paintings refer to the traditions of the 18th and 19th centuries. Though the scenes depicted are topographically correct, light and colour are altered to create a fictionalised reality.

The Second Prize of £6,000 has been awarded to Glaswegian artist, Gordon McDowall, for his artwork Horses St Mark's. Also awarded were the Smith & Williamson Cityscape Prize of £1,500 presented to Andrew Horrod for his view of Monument in London entitled The old and the new, Monument 2013, and the Vintage Classics Prize for Cover Art (£500 commission to create the cover art for a Vintage Classics) presented to David Firmstone for his watercolour, Fire marked the land like a language IV.

From a submission over eight‐hundred entries, selectors Julia Farrer, artist; Danny Markey, artist; Dr Susan Owens, Curator of Painting, Victoria & Albert Museum; Desmond ShaweTaylor CVO, Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures; and Louis Wise, Assistant Editor, Culture, The Sunday Times, have selected a total of 83 works by 79 artists to be exhibited at the Mall Galleries, London from 1621
September 2013.

The Smith & Williamson tour follows the London exhibition touring to venues throughout the UK, including for the first time to the Guildford House Gallery, Guildford from 7 December 2013-4 January 2014.