Welcome to our Young Art Oxford Exhibition page

Well done to all the children taking part in the Young Art Oxford Competition 2026! This year’s theme was ‘Little Things that Matter’ and we are blown away by the fantastic artwork they all submitted!

We really hope the children enjoyed getting creative and whether or not their artwork is exhibited at The Ashmolean Museum they should be incredibly proud of what they produced! We hope you will bring your budding artist and your family and join us at the exhibition on the 15^th and 16^th May.

Everything you need to know about the exhibition, how to order prints or digital copies of your young artist’s masterpiece and how to enter our fabulous raffle, can be found below. Please read on however as we would also love to tell you a bit more about the amazing impact the children are contributing to by taking part in Young Art Oxford this year!

About the Exhibition

Congratulations to everyone whose picture was selected to be exhibited at The Ashmolean! With so many wonderful pictures submitted (thousands) the competition was incredibly tough and if we could, we would exhibit them all! Unfortunately there isn’t sufficient space at the museum for that so our amazing judges had the hard task of making their selections.

We would love to see everyone who took part in the competition at The Ashmolean in May. It is a truly spectacular setting and there’s lots on offer – see below for all the information you will need:

May 15th and 16th at The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Opening hours and admission:

Friday 15th May:

Doors Open: 10.00 – 5.00 pm
Opening Evening: 5.30 – 8.00 pm (Ticketed Event – free of charge)
Prize Giving Ceremony: 6.00 -7.00 pm

Saturday 16th May: 10.00 am – 5.00 pm

Admission to the exhibition is free on all days! Tickets for the Opening Evening are available from Young Art Oxford’s website from April 22nd.

In addition to seeing all the exhibited artwork and celebrating the young artists, here’s what you can expect:

A programme with your young artist’s name listed as one of the exhibitors. They might even be lucky enough to have their picture printed in it.
Be their first customer. For a donation of your choice you can buy your young artist’s mounted picture, adding to their sense of achievement.
Vote for your favourite picture. For a small donation you can vote for your favourite picture. The picture with the most votes at the end of the exhibition wins a prize.
Buy a souvenir of the day. There will be a small range of Young Art Oxford stationery items available to buy to encourage young artists with their future artistic adventures.
Collect your pre-orders for cards, prints and digital images placed before 1st May and avoid postage and packaging charges. See below for how to place your order in advance.
Order cards and prints of your child’s exhibited picture. If you haven’t placed a pre-order, you can also order at the exhibition (most payment methods accepted).
Enter our fabulous raffle. If you haven’t had the opportunity to enter our raffle online, you have another chance to purchase raffle tickets at the exhibition.

All of the above will help raise more funds for Rafiki Thabo Foundation’s work (which you can read more about further below).

Ordering print, cards and digital images in advance

We’re delighted to be able to offer you the opportunity to purchase both hard copy and digital images of your young artist’s exhibited masterpieces. This is a great way of remembering and celebrating their achievement at home for years to come and a fabulous gift for friends and family.

All photographs are captured by a skilled professional photographer, ensuring exceptional quality images.

Choose between:

Two sizes of prints – A4 & A3 high quality art prints
Packs of cards – A6 greeting cards with the artists name on the back
Downloadable file – high-res digital images – use the image on items of your own choosing.

Ordering a unique memento of an exhibited picture helps fund our vital work enabling access to education for vulnerable children in Kenya, Uganda and Lesotho who without our support will remain out of school.

You can place your order on Young Art Oxford’s website from 1^st April 2026.

The Raffle

We also have a fabulous raffle that you can enter this year!

Each raffle ticket costs £5 which could pay for 14 hot nutritious school meals at our partner school in Uganda! 4 raffle tickets could pay for school uniform, shoes and books for a street child in Kenya.

The raffle is electronic, so you can purchase tickets even if you are unable to join us for the Exhibition. See below for some of our fantastic raffle prizes (more to be added shortly)!

Garden landscaping design donated by Hadingham Kirk worth £6,000
Print by one of our esteemed judges, Jeremy Houghton – Artist in Residence, numbered and signed
Afternoon Tea at the Ashmolean for a family including exhibition tickets
An annual pass family ticket for Blenheim Palace (2 adults and 2 children aged 3-16, under 3s are free)

Click on the button below to purchase raffle tickets.

Shortly after your payment has been processed you will receive an e-mail from Rafiki Thabo confirming your payment and raffle ticket numbers.

The raffle winners will be drawn on Friday the 22^nd May (after the exhibition has closed) and the winners will be contacted by e-mail during the week commencing 25^th May and announced on our website (subject to their permission).

Your Impact

By taking part in this year’s competition, the children are helping us enable their peers in Kenya, Uganda and Lesotho to go to school so that they too have the opportunity to get an education and look forward to brighter futures. There is something particularly special and heart-warming about children helping children and we would love it if you take a moment to share with your young artist just how meaningful their support is.

The children and young people that Rafiki Thabo Foundation support live in poverty, many are orphaned and many live with a disability. With the average cost for a year at secondary school being £320 per child, their families cannot afford to pay the school fees, and many children drop out after primary school. Many children also often go for days without a nutritious meal. Together with our Headline Sponsor Hadingham Kirk and Supporting Sponsor Stoneworld who are helping us cover the cost of the exhibition, the Oxfordshire children taking part in Young Art Oxford are supporting children less fortunate than themselves with access to education. With an education these children can fulfil their potential, secure decent jobs, in turn send their own children to school and help their family escape poverty for good.

The £2 entry fee you paid to submit their picture can pay for a whole week of nutritious school meals to a vulnerable child in Uganda.
For every 174 pictures entered, school fees for an entire year can be paid for a child in Uganda for whom education is the only path to a better future.

Have a look around our website to learn more about our work and click here to see just how amazing the impact you and your children are contributing to is!

Thank you for being part of these children’s journeys to a brighter future, journeys like Susan’s*….

We would love to share more stories about our scholars and what they go on to achieve as well as updates about our other programmes enabling access to education. You can sign up to our newsletter here.

Thank you so much to all our Young Art Oxford 2026 Artists and to their families for encouraging them to take part! Thank you also for supporting the important work we do at Rafiki Thabo Foundation!

Best wishes from the teams at Young Art Oxford, Rafiki Thabo Foundation, Hadingham Kirk and Stoneworld.