A painting student at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn has won one of the leading student art prizes in the United States. Rumi Agarwal, who is studying for a BFA in Fine Arts with a focus on painting and is due to graduate in 2029, took the 2026 AXA Art Prize US for her painting The Night Wears Prussian Blue. Pratt said it was the first time one of its students had received the honour.

The AXA Art Prize is among the most prominent competitions for art students in the country. This year it attracted close to 600 submissions from 132 schools, making Agarwal's win a notable result for a student still early in her degree. The prize organisers run an exhibition of the winning and shortlisted work, and Agarwal's painting will travel as part of that touring show, giving the work an audience well beyond New York.

For Pratt, the result is a small milestone: the institute has never before had a winner in the competition. Student prizes of this kind can shape an emerging artist's early career, bringing gallery attention, press coverage and invitations that are otherwise hard to secure while still at school. Agarwal's win puts a current undergraduate's work in front of audiences across the United States through the travelling exhibition.

The award also underlines how competitive the student art field has become, with hundreds of entrants from more than a hundred schools chasing a single top prize each year. Agarwal's painting, made in deep blue tones suggested by its title, now carries the distinction of having beaten that field.