19° Drawing Prize
Daniel & Florence Guerlain
Contemporary Art Foundation

This year the names of the 3 artists for the 19th Drawing Prize were announced on December 11h 2025

The artists are :

- Cathryn Boch, French born in 1968

- Simon Schubert, German born in 1976

- Renie Spoelstra , Dutch born in 1974


The works of the three artists nominated for the
2026 Prize will be on view at the Salon du Dessin,
in the Palais Brongniart, Paris, where the winner
will be announced on 26 March 2026.




  2026 drawing prize booklet      announcement 16th prize  

How did you choose this year’s nominees, Cathryn Boch, Simon Schubert and Renie Spoelstra?

Cathryn Boch’s sewn works have fascinated us for several years and we have already donated some magnificent pieces to the Centre Pompidou. This Prize comes at the right time for her, we think, since her career is already well-established. We also find both Simon Schubert’s drawings and folded paper works quite extraordinary. And then we have known Renie Spoelstra for a long time. She who shows her feelings so deeply on paper has already appeared in various exhibitions of the works we have gifted to the Centre Pompidou. Even if there is no predefined theme for the 2026 Prize, these three artists seem wellmatched to us


Without manifesting a specific theme, all of them clearly have a very delicate approach to questions of appearance and disappearance… Is this in response to a need you feel after awarding several Prizes to seriously committed and expressive works?

These three artists effectively flirt with a form of abstraction, even

if one can easily recognise subjects such as landscapes, interior

architecture or portraits, shown in a diffuse, soft manner. It was

unintentional, but observing their works induced a feeling of

tranquillity as opposed to the state of the world. However, on

looking at them carefully, these are very inhabited works…




Inhabited works that bring very diverse techniques into play…

It is true that these artists have used charcoal, pigments, collage,

folded paper and sewing – i.e. very different techniques, either

traditional or more contemporary – but all highly accomplished

in their execution. They go hand in hand with this concept of

the medium as a symbol of inner need and introspection.


Will your donation to the Centre Pompidou continue to travel

in tandem?

Yes, we are happy to announce our next exhibition at the National Museum of Art, Riga, a town we discovered at its Biennial in 2018 and really liked. We have been back several times. The project then took shape, notably thanks to the support of the French Embassy there. From the 26 July, we’ll be showcasing the work of about thirty artists, with over a hundred drawings of classic subjects such as nature, portraits… Part of our collection will then be exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, Malaga, in 2027, and we are already working on our 20th Drawing Prize, which marks the thirtieth anniversary of the creation of our foundation. A very fine programme indeed! 



         Interview Marie Maertens

Selected Artists

19° Drawing Prize Daniel & Florence Guerlain Contemporary Art Foundation

Cathryn Boch 

Cathryn Boch was born in France in 1968.

She is a graduate of the École supérieure des arts décoratifs, Strasbourg. She began exhibiting in the 1990s and has taken part in numerous shows at public museums, notably the Palais de Tokyo and Musée des Arts décoratifs (Paris), the Fondazione Museo Civico di Rovereto (Italy), the Musée de Grenoble and the Kunstwerk Carlshütte (Büdelsdorf, Germany).

Her works are present in the collections of the Cabinet d’arts graphiques at the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), the Fonds d’art contemporain - Paris Collections, the Fnac (Fonds national d’art contemporain), the FRAC (Fonds régionaux d’art contemporain, Sud and Picardie), the Mamco (Geneva), as well as in the collections of Antoine de Galbert and the Daniel and Florence Guerlain Foundation.


Oeuvres

Simon Schubert

Simon Schubert was born in Germany in 1976.

He graduated from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He began showing his works in 2006 and has exhibited at the Château de Rentilly and the Centre d’art contemporain de Meymac (France), the Musée des Beaux-Arts de La Chaux-de-Fonds (Switzerland), the Art Museum Villa Zanders, the Kunstsammlung Neubrandenburg, the Museum Morsbroich Leverkusen and the Clemens Sels Museum Neuss (all three in Germany).

His pieces are present in the collections of the Museum Villa Zanders, the Kunstsammlung des Deutschen Bundestages (Berlin), the Edwin Scharff Museum (Neu-Ulm), the Vatican Museums, the David Roberts Art Foundation (London) and the Jacques & Miny Defauwes Collection.

Oeuvres

Renie Spoelstra 

Renie Spoelstra was born in the Netherlands in 1974.

She attended the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. She had her first shows in 2007 and has taken part in several exhibitions in public museums: at the Frac Picardie (Amiens, France), the Museum Belvedere Heerenveen, the Rijksmuseum Twenthe Enschede and the Drawing Centre Diepenheim (all three in the Netherlands).

Her works are now in the collections of the Macba (Barcelona), the Centraal Museum (Utrecht), the Stedelijk Museum (Schiedam), the Teylers Museum (Haarlem), as well as in the Daniel and Florence Guerlain donation to the Musée national d’art moderne (Paris). She is represented by the Galerie Ron Mandos (Rotterdam).


Oeuvres