Columbia Threadneedle's charitable foundation will next year take its art exhibition to the home of Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.

The Columbia Threadneedle Prize, the UK's art prize funded by global investment manager Columbia Threadneedle Investments, is travelling to Florence for the first time thanks to a collaboration with Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi.

After the winner of the competition for figurative and representational painting and sculpture is revealed on 2 February 2016, the exhibition will return to London's Mall Galleries for its eighth year. It will then set up in Palazzo Strozzi in Florence for four weeks from 27 June, giving the featured artists exposure in another major centre of art.

“We are delighted to be working with Palazzo Strozzi to extend the prize to Europe, offering figurative artists the rare opportunity to exhibit both in London and Florence. We hope this will encourage an unprecedented number of artists from across Europe to take part,” said the chair of Columbia Threadneedle Foundation, Alison Jefferis.

The winner will take home £20,000 ($31,000) and receive a solo exhibition in the Threadneedle Space at Mall Galleries.

And the Columbia Threadneedle Prize selectors are:

·      Emma Crichton-Miller, columnist for Apollo magazine, freelance journalist for Financial Times, FT How to Spend It, The Wall Street Journal Europe and the RA Magazine
·      David Dawson, artist, writer and photographer
·      Dr Arturo Galansino, director general of Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi
·      Dr Tim Knox, director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
·      Lewis McNaught (selection panel chair), director, Mall Galleries.

Columbia Threadneedle Foundation focuses on charities that use education, art and sport to engender social change. Last year, the prize attracted 3,725 entries from 1,931 artists, with 64 works making the final exhibition in London.