South Dakota: Congressional Art Competition

Fragments of Freedom, by Magnus Weber, is the 2025 South Dakota winner in the Congressional Art Competition. Image courtesy of the artist and South Dakota Arts Council

Each spring, the Congressional Institute sponsors the Congressional Art Competition, a high school visual art competition celebrating artistic talent in U.S. congressional districts. More than 650,000 high school students have participated in the competition since it began in the early 1980s. Artworks must be original two-dimensional pieces that can include paintings, drawings, collages, prints, photographs or mixed-media works.

Every congressional office adopts its own approach to organizing the competition. For South Dakota’s at-large congressional district, the South Dakota Arts Council (SDAC) coordinates the program in partnership with the congressional office. This relationship was formed in the early years of the competition, with former Rep. Tim Johnson. It has remained in place through each change of office, sustaining the collaboration across the terms of six different South Dakota representatives.

SDAC promotes the contest to students and educators, recruits submissions, and facilitates adjudication via digital review. Once the winner is selected, SDAC frames, packages and ships the physical artwork to Washington, D.C. Uniquely to the South Dakota competition, a second-place piece is also selected, framed and shipped.

Winning artworks are exhibited for one year in the Cannon Tunnel of the U.S. Capitol. This is a prominent space, as that passage is a high-traffic corridor between the U.S. Capitol and the House of Representatives. Members of Congress, federal officials and tens of thousands of tourists use the tunnel and view the winning student artworks from across the nation.

Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) recently announced Magnus Weber from Pierre as the South Dakota winner of the 2025 competition. Weber is a senior at T.F. Riggs High School in Pierre, South Dakota. He drew Fragments of Freedom, an abstract pen and ink portrait evoking an eagle. Second place was awarded to Katherine Kretchman, a home-schooled senior. Her painting will hang in Representative Johnson’s D.C. office throughout the exhibition period.

For more information about state arts agency roles in supporting capitol exhibitions or arts education, contact NASAA.