COMPETITIONS
This annual juried oil portrait sketching competition offers artists the opportunity to compete in a focused live-painting event. Tickets are limited; registration is now open.
Join Us for the 2026 Juried Portrait Competition
Sunday, April 26, 2026
Lyme Academy of Fine Arts, Old Lyme, CT
Schedule
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Registration: 9:00 – 9:30 am
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Easel Assignment (lottery): 9:30 am
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Competition Begins: 10:00 am
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Lunch Break: 12:30 – 1:00 pm
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Judging: 3:30 pm
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Group Photo & Refreshments: 3:30 pm
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Awards Announced: 4:30 pm
Prizes
- 1st Place – $2,000
- 2nd Place – $1,000
- 3rd Place – $500
Jurors
- Steven Assael
- Jon DeMartin
Studio Policies
Studio policies and procedures are designed to maintain a healthy and safe environment for all participants. By participating in this event, you agree to adhere to these policies.
- Campus buildings are non-smoking; we ask that you use the parking lot as a designated area to smoke.
- None of the school’s furniture (easels, drawing tables, stools, modeling stands, etc.) may be removed from the studios.
- Any person causing damage to the casts or other school property will be held financially and legally responsible.
- Please leave all studios and easels clean and free of trash.
- Do not wash oil or solvents down the drain.
- The Lyme Academy is not responsible for the loss or damage of personal belongings or artwork. Any material, artwork, or other personal property left in the school after the event will be disposed of.
- Please dispose of painting rags and towels in the designated red metal oily waste cans.
- Only odorless solvents are allowed. Turpentine is prohibited.
Model Policies
- Models will take a 5 min. break every 20 min.
- Models should never be touched.
- No photography of models is allowed without their permission.
- The competition organizers and studio monitors will be responsible for choosing the poses.
- All individuals, including models, must refrain from talking while the model is posing. Cell phones should be set to silent mode.
Juror Bios
STEVEN ASSAEL
“Steven Assael is acclaimed as the most accomplished figurative artist of his generation…(and) has devoted himself to realistic rendering of the human figure since he was a child prodigy…Certainly Assael is conscious of not just the whole history of painting but also the deeper connection between the portrait and its subject’s mortality.”
– Adrian Dannatt for “The Art Newspaper”, November 2002
Born in New York City in 1957, Steven Assael graduated from Pratt Institute and has served for decades as faculty at the School of Visual Arts and as a senior critic at the New York Academy of Art. The Artist’s prodigious technique, his use of light and shadow, sensitive line and detail are deployed in the interest of the implication of narrative; the psychological import of the scene, the relationship and the character of the sitter.
Steven Assael’s work was the subject of a one-person exhibition at the Naples (FL) Museum of Art from October, 2010 to January, 2011. Assael’s paintings were also included in the exhibition “New Old Masters”, curated by Donald Kuspit, at the National Museum in Gdansk, Poland in 2006. A retrospective exhibition was held at the Frye Art Museum, Seattle (WA) in 1999. Single-person exhibitions of works by Steven Assael have also been featured at the Cress Gallery of Art at the University of Tennessee, Lowe Gallery (Atlanta, GA) and Ann Nathan Gallery (Chicago, IL). His work has been exhibited at The Arkansas Arts Center, The New York Academy of Art and The Arnot Art Museum (Elmira, NY), and is in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago (IL), The Hunter Museum of Art (Chattanooga, TN), The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art & Design (Kansas City, MO), The Columbus Museum of Art (OH) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY).
Steven Assael is represented by Forum Gallery, New York, NY.
JON DEMARTIN
Jon deMartin‘s work centers on the human figure within an environment with an emphasis on 16–18th century drawing techniques, but applied to contemporary subject matter. He stresses the importance of drawing from both life and the imagination as the ultimate goal in composition and picture making.
His work has been exhibited in galleries both nationally and internationally including the Hirschl & Adler Gallery, the Albright Knox Museum, the Cameron Museum, the Arnot Museum, the Florence Griswald Museum, the Butler Museum of Art, and the Beijing World Art Museum. He also had solo shows at the John Pence Gallery in San Francisco and the Century Gallery in Alexandria Virginia.
DeMartin has taught at prestigious institution’s including the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford England and now the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University. Other schools include the New York Academy Graduate School of Art, Arts Students League, the Grand Central Academy of Art, Lyme Academy of Fine Arts, the Janus Collaborative School of Art and Studio Incamminati. He is the author of Drawing Atelier THE FIGURE: how to draw in the classical style, which has been translated into Chinese and French.
You can follow Jon on Instagram– jondemartin and website–www.jondemartin.com
Event Registration & Ticket Purchase
General Artists: $55.00
Tickets will not be available at the door, and all ticket purchases are final. Registrants who do not make payment within 48 hours will be dropped.
