ABOUT US

Our mission is to support emerging artists from across the world, bringing their work to a wider audience through artist opportunities, a programme of pop-up exhibitions and international art fairs, as well as maintaining a vibrant online presence that showcases our wide network of hundreds of talented artists. This global visibility and support can be career-making and life-changing, with opportunities for sales, exhibitions, gallery representation, press, and much more.

Young Masters is a not-for-profit international initiative which was launched in 2009 by gallerist Cynthia Valianti Corbett, founder of Cynthia Corbett Gallery.

This unique initiative highlights emerging artists of any gender, age, or nationality, working in any media, whose work responds to the art of the past. Since its launch in 2009, six editions of the Young Masters Art Prize have taken place in London, most recently in 2023. Each edition has been judged by an independent jury of art world experts, with winners from across the world including Ghost of a Dream (USA), Juergen Wolf (Germany) and Azita Moradkhani (Iran).

In 2014 the Young Masters Maylis Grand Ceramic Prize was added to focus more attention on the growing interest in the collection of contemporary craft, with the inaugural edition crowning Matt Smith (UK) as the winner.

2017 saw the launch of the inaugural Young Masters Emerging Women Award. The fifth edition and 10th Anniversary Exhibition of the Prize took place in October 2019. 

Focus on the Female was developed in 2021 as an artistic and philanthropic response to the impact of the COVID pandemic on women. Focus on the Female continues as a regular project within Cynthia Corbett Gallery’s exhibition programme.

In 2025, Young Masters presented For the Love of Art History at The Exhibitionist Hotel in South Kensington, London. Bringing together artists from across the globe, the exhibition explored love in its many forms through the lens of art history, while embracing diverse cultural legacies and underrepresented perspectives.

To mark its 16th anniversary, Young Masters presented Sweet 16: Young Masters Retrospective at 67 York Street Gallery during Frieze Week in October 2025. The exhibition celebrated over a decade and a half of artistic innovation rooted in the traditions of art history, bringing together past finalists and new talents.

In 2026, Young Masters presented Line of Beauty: Young Masters People’s Choice Award Winners Exhibition at The Exhibitionist Hotel, South Kensington, from 15 January to 12 June, celebrating artists recognised through the Young Masters People’s Choice Award.

Later that year, Young Masters presented Her Court: The Role Wimbledon Played in the Suffragette Movement at Wimbledon Museum, an important museum collaboration bringing contemporary art into dialogue with the museum’s historic suffrage archives.

Young Masters continues as a curatorial platform, with a mission to support emerging artists who are inspired by the art of the past to sell work, reach new collectors and exhibit their work to new audiences.

We hope that you will come on this second chapter of the journey with us!