Artist of the Year

Artist of the Year is a television competition shown on the Sky Arts channel (formerly known as Artsworld and Sky Arts 1) which aims to find the best portrait and landscape artist every year.

Overview
Through several rounds of regional competitions in different parts of the UK professional and amateur artists are challenged to produce a landscape; whilst the portrait competition takes place in London where the contestants produce a picture of one of three famous sitters. The winning artist of each round, selected by three judges, advances to the semi-final and then to the final. The landscape competition is filmed on location; whilst the portrait competition is held at Battersea Arts Centre. The winner of both series receives a £10,000 commission to paint either a famous landmark or a famous personality and the picture becomes part of a national collection.

The show is produced by London and Glasgow-based independent production company Storyvault Films. It is presented by Joan Bakewell and Stephen Mangan. Series 1 to 5 were presented by Frank Skinner. The judges are the British art historian, curator and arts broadcaster Kate Bryan, head of contemporary art at the Fine Art Society, Kathleen Soriano, director of exhibitions at the Royal Academy, and portrait/landscape painter Tai-Shan Schierenberg.

Joan Bakewell presented her final series of the show on Portrait Artist 2023 (Series 18 of the competition), in which she also appeared as a sitter in one of the episodes.

International adaptations
Landscape Artist of the Year Canada, a Canadian version of the show, premiered in 2020 on Makeful.