Sarah Cecilia Harrison Essay Prize 2024

New research and writing telling the stories of women in Ireland's visual culture 

The National Gallery of Ireland is delighted to launch the third year of the Sarah Cecilia Harrison Essay Prize. This award marks Sarah Cecilia Harrison’s legacy in the arts and as a social campaigner and will recognise the best new research and writing, telling the stories of women and Ireland’s visual culture, including fine art, design and craft.

The prize is open to all members of the public over 18 years of age. The author of the winning essay will be awarded a €1,000 prize at a reception held in the National Gallery of Ireland on 14 November 2024 (date subject to change).

This prize is generously supported by the descendants of the sister of Sarah Cecilia Harrison, Beatrice Chisholm.

How to enter

Read the competition rules

Before entering the competition, read the eligibility requirements and competition rules in full.

Your essay

• Must relate to women who have contributed to Ireland’s visual culture or Irish women who have worked in the visual arts abroad
• Must be new and previously unpublished
• Must be written in English only
• No longer than 5,000 words in length, inclusive of cover pages, footnotes and endnotes

How to submit

Email your entry to [email protected] before midnight (IST) on Friday 20 September 2024.

You must include the following information in the body of your email:

1. Your full name
2. Your address
3. Your telephone number
4. Your date of birth
5. A statement of permission for the Gallery to share your name and locality (if shortlisted) with press, media and other promotional purposes in connection with the competition, including on the Gallery’s social media platforms
6. Social media handles (optional)

You must add the following documents as attachments to your email:

1. Essay (attached as a Word or PDF)
2. 500-word abstract (attached as Word or PDF)
3. 200-500 word biography of the author (attached as Word or PDF)

Include your full name in the filename of each document.

Closing date

Complete entries must be emailed to [email protected] by midnight (IST) on Friday 20 September 2024.

Previous winners 

The winner of the 2023 prize was John Christopher Vaughan for his essay In the Mood for God: Colour and Mysticism in the Art of Mary Swanzy.

Read John's award-winning essay here.

Two runners-up were also acknowledged by the judges: 

• Paula Arning - Shaping Modern Spaces: Exploring dynamics in the modernist designs of Eileen Gray and Lilly Reich
• Marie Kelly - Amanda Coogan: Dress and the deconstruction of feminine truths in yellow and Medea

In 2022, the inaugural prize was won by Chiara Harrison Lambe for her essay Stella Steyn (1907-1987): A Name to Remember, with two runners-up, Niamh Flood and Mary Morrissy, also acknowledged.

The Gallery's Library and Archive

The Gallery’s Library and Archive include important and valuable collections of research material held at the Centre for the Study of Irish Art (CSIA), Yeats Archive and Gallery's institutional archives. These collections support the study and scholarly interpretation of visual art in Ireland.

The central role played by women artists in the development and dissemination of modernist art in Ireland is well documented. However, the broader story of women artists in Ireland and their achievements has often been forgotten, or viewed as ancillary to the standard canon.

In 2019 the Gallery acquired the Sarah Cecilia Harrison archive. Comprising over 400 letters from Sir Hugh Lane to the artist, the archive (dating from 1905–1915) provides insight into the world in which both Lane and Harrison lived and worked. This important collection is now fully catalogued and digitised and available to researchers on source.ie. 

Archives and primary research are essential to understanding and revealing these stories. Through the development of our collections, engagement and learning programmes, the Library and Archives department, including the CSIA, has worked to promote Irish women artists as well as female-led collectives and industries.