The Art Renewal Center (ARC) has a prominent online presence, where it showcases the winners and finalists of its annual International ARC Salon Competition, artists from around the world who represent the top contemporary realists working today.
Every other year, ARC presents the best 100 works from the last two iterations of the competition in a live, in-person exhibition and sale. Featuring select pieces from the 17th and 18th annual International ARC Salon Competition,the 2026 event will take place July 17 to 27 at Sotheby’s in New York City at its new flagship location in the iconic Breuer Building on Madison Avenue. About half of the artwork in the exhibition will be for sale (the others are on loan from private collections) through the Sotheby’s website beginning July 10, and will remain so for the duration of the exhibition.
Anna Abraham, Moving Still, oil on canvas, 60 x 36 in.
A place in this year’s exhibition was offered to the top award recipients, as well as the first, second and third place winners from each of the competition’s 11 categories which include figurative, portraiture, imaginative realism, drawing, landscape, still life, plein air painting, fully from life, sculpture, animals and a special category for teens.
In the 17th ARC Competition, Best in Show went to Pavel Sokov for Watching the Dance, a poignant painting that captures a young girl on the outskirts of a tribal dance in Ethiopia. Sokov’s curiosity in traditional cultures drew him to the country, where he lived for two months among eight tribes of the Omo Valley, including the Dassanach tribe, which the girl in this painting is from.
Marcos Rey, La Manca, ink, graphite, and charcoal on canvas, 39¼ x 26¼ in.
Sokov’s creative process is immersive and multifaceted. “I arrive at the real location, paint paintings from life of people but also of where they live, take photos, purchase cultural artifacts to take home with me and try to learn as much as I can about their personal stories and traditions,” he explains. “With my series, I hope to tell their varied stories and show that there are very different ways of living from our own.”
Sean Layh’s Antigone won Best in Show in the 18th ARC Salon Competition. The monumental canvas reimagines Sophocles’ tragic heroine standing stoically under the arches of a grand gallery in disarray. Layh provides additional context. “She cradles a child—an imaginative reference to her son, who appears in the lost Euripidean play The Epigoni—signifying the enduring consequences of resistance and legacy. Behind her hangs Antigone in front of the dead Polynices,1865, by Nikiforos Lytras, anchoring the work within classical and art historical tradition. The empty frame and scattered pages evoke erasure, forgotten memory, and the fragility of cultural inheritance. Through this layered composition I depict the tension between private morality and public law, and the emotional aftermath of civil defiance.”
Sean Layh, Antigone, oil on board, 39¼ x 55 in.
Darcie Peet’s oil Lavender Twilight won first place in the landscape category in the most recent competition. The painting was inspired by a river scene glimpsed in the Canadian Rockies. “Almost out of daylight the landscape was transformed into many soft shades of muted purple, lavender and blue creating such a sense of utter quiet and stillness,” describes Peet. “This sense of calm was only interrupted by the remnants of sun brilliantly gleaming across the many zigzagging water channels creating linear, ribbon patterns of light across the broad river plain.”
Sentinel by renowned figurative artist Ruth Fitton received second place in that category in the 18th iteration of the competition. “I wanted to create a painting portraying a figure who was buffeted by circumstances but poised enough to ignore them,” she says about the woman who stands strong, with her collar turned up against the elements. “The figure in Sentinelrefuses to acknowledge the raucously circling gulls or the wind blowing her coat, or even the viewer. She waits it all out patiently, eyes fixed on something we cannot see. The breaking light in the distance implies that the change she awaits is getting closer.”
Pavel Sokov, Watching the Dance, oil on linen adhered to birch wood panel, 36 x 24 in.
Anna Abraham won awards in multiple categories for her large-format canvas Moving Still, a still life featuring a collection of objects gathered throughout the artist’s journeys. “Central to the composition is a greyhound-like dog, whom I found during my travels in Africa,” she says. “Her whimsical appearance has often been likened to that of a fairytale creature. With this in mind, the setting takes on an enchanted, woodland quality—imbuing the work with a sense of wonder and subtle fantasy.”
Winning both First Place Drawing and Second Place Portraiture in the 18th competition is Marcos Rey’s La Manca, which was rendered in ink, graphite and charcoal. “This work portrays a woman living a hard life in the countryside,” explains Rey. “The absence of her right hand symbolizes the loss of her entire family. She continues to fight to survive and cling to the only thing she has left, which is her dignity and her will to move forward.”
Ruth Fitton, Sentinel, oil on linen, 47 x 31¼ in.
Other standout works included Chung-Wei Chien’s award-winning watercolor Salmagundi Library; Cara Wilmanns’ Adorned, which received recognition in multiple categories; and Christopher Evans’ Artemis Alone at the River of Extinction, which took home Best Social Commentary for highlighting the plight of endangered species.
“Year after year, artists return to participate in our Salon and spread the word to their friends,” says ARC Salon director Angela Swanson Jones. “Consequently, our Salon and exhibition showcases an astonishing depth and breadth, not just in categories offered, but in medium, style, interpretation and multi-national participation…This exhibition aims to bring much deserved attention to talented artists, and visitors will experience first-hand some of the best examples of contemporary realism worldwide.”
Darcie Peet, Lavender Twilight, oil on canvas, 24 x 24 in.
An opening reception will be held July 18 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., at which many exhibiting and award-winning artists will be in attendance. On July 25, in collaboration with Fashion Week San Diego, original couture pieces inspired by award-winning artworks will be featured in a live fashion show at Sotheby’s New York.
Visit the Art Renewal Center website for details. —
17th/18th International ARC Salon Exhibition
July 17-27, 2026
Sotheby’s New York
945 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10021
(732) 636-2060, www.artrenewal.org
Powered by Froala Editor
