Established in 2010, New Light celebrated and promoted Northern art, supporting both well-known and emerging artists by offering some of the region’s best awards and opportunities with the biennial New Light Prize Exhibition.

In a bid to make contemporary art more accessible, we also ran New Light Art for All – an education programme which included talks, workshops and school projects. Through the New Light Collection, we aimed to make the best in Northern visual arts available to more people, by loaning pieces from the Collection free of charge to public bodies and charities. This resulted in more people experiencing the thrill of having art of the highest quality displayed on their walls.

The common thread through all we did was a deep belief that the visual arts matter and the North of England deserves to be celebrated.