Viking Announces Winner of the Viking Prize for Print at Royal Academy of Arts’ Summer Exhibition | News
Viking, a global leader in experiential travel, and the Royal Academy of Arts (RA), today announced at the Summer Exhibition that the British artist Olivia Wells has been awarded the Viking Prize for Print for her photoetching entitled ‘PULMO 8’. The award, which includes a £5,000 cash prize sponsored by Viking, was presented to Olivia during a ceremony held at the RA today. Viking is collaborating with the RA, one of its long-standing cultural partners, for a second year in a row to deliver the Viking Prize for Print.
The RA’s Summer Exhibition is the world’s largest open submission contemporary art show and stands as a unique celebration of contemporary art and architecture. The show features a diverse mix of works by established artists and emerging talents including first-time exhibitors. This year’s coordinator is British artist and Royal Academician Ryan Gander OBE, and the theme is ‘Interconnectedness’, which explores ideas of entanglement and the unexpected connections between disparate things, people and artistic mediums.
Each year, the RA presents prizes to recognise outstanding works displayed at the Summer Exhibition, which is open to the public until 23 August 2026. A proportion of sales from the Summer Exhibition goes towards supporting students at the RA Schools, which is the oldest art school in the UK and the only free post graduate fine art course in Europe.
In addition to the Viking Prize for Print, awards include the Charles Wollaston Award, as well as awards for figurative art, sculpture, drawing, female artists and architecture.
The judging panel for the Viking Prize for Print included Wendy Atkin-Smith, Managing Director of Viking UK, and Kate Jenkins, the celebrated British textile artist known for her crocheted food creations featured in the World Café on board a number of Viking’s award-winning ocean ships, and British printmaker Trevor Price, who was awarded the inaugural Viking Prize for Print for his woodcut on paper entitled ‘Rock ‘n Roll’ at the 2025 Summer Exhibition. The judging panel also included Royal Academicians Oona Grimes and Anne Desmet; Annie Tempest, the esteemed artist and sculptor best known for her strip cartoon Tottering-by-Gently, which has appeared in Country Life magazine since 1993, and Saska Graville, Editor-in-Chief of Country Living.
Wendy Atkin-Smith, Managing Director of Viking UK, said: “We are delighted to once again present the Viking Prize for Print at the Royal Academy of Arts’ much loved Summer Exhibition, which is truly a highlight of London’s summer calendar. We would like to congratulate Olivia on what my fellow judges and I agreed was an outstanding submission, particularly in the way she combines digital and natural elements to create a beautiful print.”
Viking, known for its destination-focused and culturally-immersive experiences on board and on shore, displays its own collection of original primarily Norwegian artworks on its fleet of elegant ocean and expedition ships. Viking’s art collection features pieces by established as well as up-and-coming artists from Edvard Munch, H.M. Queen Sonja of Norway and Jakob Weidemann, to Ida Lorentzen, Magne Furuholmen, Christian Skredsvig, Kåre Tveter and award-winning British photographer Alastair Miller. Like at the Summer Exhibition, the artwork encompasses a variety of media and styles—from digital to print, oil paintings to photography and sculpture—all handpicked to reflect a variety of key themes, including the original Viking explorers, Norse mythology, folk art of the Nordic countries and the beauty of nature. Through an exclusive partnership and long-standing relationship with Oslo’s Munch Museum, Viking’s ocean ships are home to one of the largest privately owned collections of Munch’s work in the world. Viking has also been granted the digital rights to the entire collection of Munch’s works.
Winner of the second Viking Prize for Print, Olivia Wells is British and was born in Tokyo, Japan. She attained a BA in Archaeology and Anthropology from Durham University before studying traditional drawing and painting methods at the Florence Academy of Art in Italy followed by a MA in Print from the Royal College of Art. Olivia’s work explores human engagement with digital and natural environments through the use of different materials such as graphite, paint and ink – in her photoetches she merges photographic imagery and delicate structures to create detailed, highly textured prints.
Viking’s other cultural partners in the UK include the British Museum, Classic FM, Newbury Spring Festival, Wimbledon BookFest, Battle Proms, Chalke History Festival and Highclere Castle.
To book tickets to the Summer Exhibition, open now until 23 August 2026, go to: https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/summer-exhibition-2026. For more on Olivia Wells and her artwork, visit: https://www.oliviawellsstudio.com/.
