The Thinking Hand
The Thinking Hand is a scholarship competition for young draftspeople, and a collaboration between the Royal Court and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts.
The spring exhibition 2026
The nominees work will be displayed 23 April–23 June in a digital gallery at Royalpalaces.se
Tenth anniversary autumn 2026
An exhibition is planned for autumn 2026, 10 October–21 November, at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, featuring the 30 artists who by then will have been awarded The Thinking Hand scholarship between 2017 and 2026. This marks the end of the scholarship competition, which was first established to commemorate His Majesty the King’s 70th birthday in 2016.
The competition is open to young draftspeople working with visual interpretation within art, architecture, fashion, design, illustration, games development or other related fields. Applicants do not need to be professionals or to have a formal arts education.
Three of the nominees will receive scholarships, with each receiving SEK 100,000. The aim is to recognise specific knowledge and the interaction between eye and hand, in order to develop thoughts about visual interpretation and to enhance its status.
The competition is being arranged by Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and around a nominees entries will be displayed in a digital exhibition, arranged by The Royal Court.
The Royal Academy of Fine Arts was founded at the Royal Palace of Stockholm in 1735, with the aim of supporting trainee painters, sculptors and architects. More than 280 years later, this aim lives on in the form of the new scholarship fund.
The fund was established on The King's birthday in 2016 by Elisabeth and Gustaf Douglas to support young professionals who work with draftsmanship.
Top image: Sculptures in Gustav III's Museum of Antiquities, photo Lisa Raihle Rehbäck
The exhibition features nominated entries from H.M. The King's Scholarship Competition for Young Draftsmen. Here, The King is seen at the opening of the 2017 exhibition. Photo: Sanna Argus Tirén/Royalpalaces.se
The scholarship recipients of 2022, Simon Persson, Kayo Mpoyi and Gabriel Gabriel Garble, at the scholarship award in Gustav III's Museum of Antiquities at the Royal palace. Photo: Pontus Lundahl/TT
In the Bernadotte Family, each generation has shown a commitment to culture and a desire to support those who work with art. We wish to wish to make special mention of Gustaf VI Adolf, a founding member of the Friends of the National Museum in 1911 and whose many years of support for the National Museum's drawing competition 'Young Draftsmen' has been a source of inspiration for the drawing competition 'The Thinking Hand'. Using his position to bring attention to, aid and support young artists was a matter of course for the former king, as it is for our current King and his son Prince Carl Philip, who has served on the jury for the scholarship competition since its inception in 2017.
Photo: Crown prince Gustaf (VI) Adolf with his uncle prince Eugen, one of Swedens most talented landscape artist of the time. Photo from the Bernadotte Library.
The scholarship recipients
Winners of the scholarship competition:
2025
Rebecka Tollens
Isak Smedfors Heldt
Nils Ekman
2024
Olle Witt
Olivia Pettersson Fleur
Rakel Bergman Fröberg
2023
Josef Alexanderson
Lina Göhle
William Jernberg
2022
Gabriel Gabriel Garble
Kayo Mpoyi
Simon Persson
2021
Titus Boguslaw
Hannah Clarkson
Hanna Holmgren
2020
Felix Vasquez Aguilera
Kristin Karlsson
Tomas Lundgren
2019
Sophie Westerlind
Emelie Markgren
Muhammad Ali
2018
Susan Whitlow
André Olsson
Rut Karin Zettergren
2017
Cedric Jaques Yu
Love Dahlstedt
Roger Smeby
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