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. Between 2009 - 2023, six editions of the Young Masters Art Prize took place in London. Each edition was judged by an independent jury of art world experts and found 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.

The sixth edition in 2023 was an incredibly successful edition, with a record number of winners receiving prizes and awards, many of whom were women artists.

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!