YOUNG ARTIST’S BIG MOMENT! 10-YEAR-OLD WINS LOWRY’S ANNUAL COPLEY PRIZE WITH LS LOWRY-INSPIRED MASTERPIECE
10-year-old Sophia van den Bos has unveiled her award-winning artwork at Lowry, Salford alongside the famous LS Lowry works that inspired it.
Sophia was selected from over 700 entries as the winner of the 2025 Copley Prize, Lowry’s annual art competition for primary school aged children to enter their own artworks inspired by LS Lowry.
Sophia’s artwork will remain on display in the Andrew Law Galleries for a year where it’s expected to be viewed by up to 100,000 visitors.
Sophia, whose work is titled Bustling Street said “I drew this artwork inspired by LS Lowry, just more modern and colourful. Lowry’s art inspires me to see beauty in everyday life.”
Sophia was welcomed to Lowry on Wednesday 10th September, alongside her family, to hang her painting at the arts centre in Salford Quays — home to the world’s largest public collection of works by the British painter LS Lowry.
Sophia’s work was chosen as this year’s overall winner by Alison and Noel Copley, who founded the competition in 2013 as an exciting way to encourage primary-aged children to develop their creativity and artistic ability. The prize invites children to recreate their own modern-day versions of LS Lowry’s work, in ways that represent the world that they live in, often capturing images of the environment around them, just as Lowry did.
Curator of the LS Lowry collection at Lowry, Claire Stewart said “LS Lowry spent a lot of time on the streets of Manchester and Salford and said I just painted what I saw – or the way I saw it, and what is marvellous about Sophia’s picture is that she has done the same. She has painted just what she might see on a walk through town and filled it with colour and vitality. It’s a very worthy winner”
Any primary school-aged children (Key Stage 1 & 2) can submit their work now for the 2026 Copley Prize. Find out more at thelowry.com/get-creative/thecopleyprize/
Since it began 13 years ago, The Copley Prize has received almost 5,000 entries. In 2018 Lowry additionally launched The Copley Schools Outreach programme that delivers free high-quality visual arts workshops to schools across Salford. And in 2023, thanks to the continued generosity of Alison and Noel Copley, Lowry extended its support to schools under a new umbrella of ‘The Copley Children’s Creative Arts Programme’ that combines Performing Arts and Health & Wellbeing as well as Visual Arts.
Alison Copley said "Sophia is a very worthy winner of this year's Copley Prize, we found her bold colours and intricate detail so engaging and admired her approach of painting life as she saw it around her, just as LS Lowry did. We hope she continues to pursue and develop her wonderful artistic talents. We would like to thank and commend all of the entrants of this year's Copley Prize, and encourage them all to keep producing fantastic artwork."
The Andrew Law Galleries are open six days a week. (Tues-Fri, 11am-5pm and Sat-Sun, 10am-5pm). Admission is free, but donations are welcome.