Welcome to the 36th Northern National Art Competition (NNAC)

The 36th Northern National Art Competition will be held in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, from June 15 - July 28, 2023. This show is a cooperative venture between Nicolet College Arts & Enrichment and the Northern Arts Council. The NNAC competition strives to showcase a cross section of contemporary art in a variety of two-dimensional mediums. Each year, hundreds of artists nationwide submit work to be considered for inclusion in this exhibition, and the art is always both visually exciting and intellectually stimulating. 

More than $8,500 in prize money will be awarded, including three $1,000 Awards of Excellence. Awards are based upon the actual artworks. 

• This renowned national juried competition is open to all US resident artists 18 years or older.
• Each artist may submit images of recent, original, 2D hangable artwork in any medium, including photography, fiber, and mixed media.
• There is no theme.
• The $35 entry fee entitles the artist to submit one or two images (one image per artwork). Images must accurately represent the work entered.
• Artists selected as finalists will have their work exhibited (and available for purchase if desired) at the Nicolet College Art Gallery until Thursday, July 28.
• Entries may be hand delivered on Friday, May 12 by appointment.
• Shipped work must arrive at the Nicolet College Art Gallery by Monday, May 15.
• Selected art must remain for the entire exhibition and awards will be distributed after the close of the show. All proceeds of sales are assigned to the artist.

Artists and their partners, friends, and families are encouraged to join us at our opening reception on Thursday, June 15. The opening reception is always a remarkable evening in celebration of the artists whose work has been chosen for the exhibition, and the public is invited to experience that work. Everyone is invited to take a leisurely stroll to savor the exhibition while enjoying a glass of wine and a plate of hors d'ouevres and then to join Juror/Judge Lenny Campello as he shares his remarks on the curation of this prestigious national show. 

Tickets for the opening reception will be available closer to the date.

CALENDAR 2023

• Monday, January 9: Registration opens
• Friday, March 24: Registration deadline
• Friday, April 21: Acceptance notification
• Friday, May 12: Hand delivery by appointment
• Monday, May 15: All shipped work due
• Thursday, June 15: Opening Reception
• Thursday, July 28: Show closes
• Friday, July 29: Pick up hand delivered work by appointment
• Monday, August 1: Shipped work will be returned this week

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Juror/Judge Florencio Lennox "Lenny" Campello

One of the Mid Atlantic area’s best known arts personalities (in 2016 the Washington City Paper called him “one of Washington’s most interesting people”), F. Lennox Campello studied art at the University of Washington School of Art in Seattle, under Professors Norman Lundin, Alden Mason, Jacob Lawrence, Everet DuPen and others. Although he graduated from Washington in 1981, the artist started to sell his work professionally in 1977, when he became one of the regular exhibiting artists at Seattle's world-famous Pike Place Market, where he sold his art school assignments until 1981.

In that same year that he graduated from Washington, he won the William Whipple National Art Competition First Prize for Printmaking, as well as the Silver Medal at the Ligoa Duncan International Art Competition in Paris and the French Prix de Peinture de Raymond Duncan, also in Paris.

Commissioned as an ensign in the US Navy in 1981, the artist was transferred to Spain where he worked on a series of landscapes of Andalusia which now hang in over fifty private collections in Spain, Portugal and the United States. In 1985 he returned to the United States, living in Monterey, California (while pursuing a Masters Degree) and later moved to Bowie, Maryland. During this time he returned to figurative drawings, as well as delivering illustrations for magazines and periodicals.

In 1989 Campello moved to Scotland, where he lived in a 307 year old farmhouse at the foothills of the Highlands near the ancient Pictish village of Brechin. The rugged character of the Scottish land and his discovery of the mezzotints of David Waterson, a mid-century Scottish printmaker, revived his previous interest in landscape, and for the next three years he produced over three hundred watercolors of Scotland. This work earned him the first prize in watercolors at the 42nd Annual International North Wynd River Art Competition in the United States.

In 1992 the artist returned to America, and lived for a year in Sonoma, California, where he produced over 400 commissioned drawings for the Sonoma Ballet Conservatory. Upon completion of this project, he relocated to the Greater Washington, DC area. In 1996 he opened the Fraser Gallery in Washington, DC and then in Bethesda, Maryland. He was the co-owner of the gallery until 2006, at which time he relocated to Media, Pennsylvania. He returned to the DC area in 2009, where he currently resides. In addition to numerous galleries, his work has been exhibited at the McManus Museum in Scotland, the Brusque Museum in Brazil, the San Bernardino County Art Museum in California, the Musee des Duncan in France, the Frick Museum in Ohio, the Meadows Museum of Art in Shreveport, Louisiana, the Hunter Museum in Tennessee, the Sacramento Fine Arts Center in California, the Popov Museum in Russia, the Rufino Tamayo Museum in Mexico City, the Rock Springs Art Center in Wyoming, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Washington, DC, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Boulder, Colorado and the Boise Museum of Art in Idaho.

As an experienced curator, Campello has also curated over 200 gallery and museum exhibitions and many important shows in the capitol area, such as the 2001 “Survey of Washington Realists” at the Athenaeum in Alexandria, a huge salon-style show that for the first time catalogued together the artists working in the realist tradition in the area, and subsequently “Seven” for the Washington Project for the Arts/Corcoran, where seven galleries were filled by selected DC area artists. In 2006 he also curated the worldwide “Homage to Frida Kahlo” exhibition for Art.com and the Cultural Institute of Mexico.

Campello is also a regularly published art critic of regional prominence. His art reviews have appeared in DC One Magazine, Cultureflux Magazine, ArtsKrush Magazine, Art Calendar Magazine, Visions Magazine for the Arts, Dimensions Magazine, Pitch Magazine, The City Beat, the Crier Newspapers chain, the Washington Post and various other local newspapers, as well as “Daily Campello Art News,” an online blog with over six million visitors that he edits and publishes. He is also often heard on NPR discussing art issues, as well as on the television program ArtsMedia News. He is the author of “100 Artists of Washington, DC” published in 2011 by Schiffer Press.

He is represented in the United States by Alida Anderson Art Projects (Maryland), Zenith Gallery (Washington, DC), WGS Contemporary (Washington, DC), Projects Gallery (Philadelphia, PA and Miami, FL), and Mayer Fine Art (Virginia).

Application Requirements

Open to all artists 18 years and older who are US residents.

Eligibility Criteria

Each artist may submit images of recent, original, 2D hangable artwork in any medium including photography, fiber, and mixed media. There is no theme. Images must accurately represent the work entered. The Gallery reserves the right to delete from the exhibition any work that does not conform to the entry specifications or that involves possible copyright infringement.