Some online exhibitions run by The National Oil and Acrylic Painters' Society are open to non-members, which is an unusual door to leave propped for a group whose whole identity rests on its membership rolls. It says something about how the organization thinks. It wants the work in front of jurors and audiences, and is willing to let an unaffiliated painter compete in certain shows to make that happen. The full membership, split into Professional and Associate levels, comes with the deeper benefits, but the competition calendar is not walled off entirely.
The National Oil and Acrylic Painters' Society serves painters who work specifically in oil and acrylic, and the specialization is the point. This is not a catch-all arts club. A watercolorist or a printmaker would find little of direct use here, while someone building a career in those two mediums gets a calendar built around their format. The anchor of that calendar is the "Best of America" annual exhibition, a juried show with a defined application window in spring and early summer and the exhibition itself running across most of September in the 2026 cycle. Around it sit Small Works competitions, seasonal online shows, and exhibitions reserved for members. The structure rewards artists who plan ahead, since the deadlines are fixed and the jurying is selective.
Jurying is where an organization like The National Oil and Acrylic Painters' Society either builds its reputation or quietly loses it. Selections are adjudicated by established jurors, and the value of any acceptance or award flows directly from who makes those calls and how seriously they take the task. A line on a resume that reads as a "Best of America" selection only means something because the field is competitive and the screening is serious. That is the implicit promise behind the whole competition apparatus, and it is the reason painters pay to enter rather than simply posting work online for free.
What members get beyond the juried shows
Past the competitions, The National Oil and Acrylic Painters' Society leans into the parts of a painting career that happen between shows. There are educational resources and workshops for working painters who need to keep sharpening technique and learning the business side of selling art. A separate community blog lives at noapsblog.com, giving the organization a place for longer writing and member voices that sits apart from the main site. Spinning the blog onto its own domain is a slightly odd choice, since it splits the reader's attention, though it does keep the primary site focused on the practical machinery of joining and entering shows.
Networking runs underneath all of it. A membership organization for painters is, in large part, a way to be in a room, physical or virtual, with others doing the same difficult thing. The Professional and Associate tiers create a clear distinction between artists at different career stages, and signup and renewal both run through the website, so the administrative side is handled in one place. Whether the company of other serious oil and acrylic painters, plus a steady stream of juried opportunities, is worth the dues is something each painter has to weigh for themselves. The National Oil and Acrylic Painters' Society does not try to be everything; it is clearly oriented toward the working, exhibiting artist.
The social media footprint backs up the sense that The National Oil and Acrylic Painters' Society is an active, outward-facing group. The National Oil and Acrylic Painters' Society maintains a presence across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest, a sensible spread for a visual discipline. Instagram and Pinterest are where painted work actually gets seen, YouTube suits demonstrations and recorded talks, and Facebook handles announcements and community traffic. An organization that lets those channels go stale is usually one in decline, so the breadth here is encouraging, provided the posting keeps up.
The sponsor and partner list is worth a moment because it is concrete. Airfloat Systems makes art shipping and crating products, the kind of unglamorous infrastructure that matters enormously when paintings travel to a physical show. American Art Collector is a publication that puts represented artists in front of buyers and galleries. Workshops in France points toward the travel-and-instruction corner of the art world. Those three partners sketch the ecosystem The National Oil and Acrylic Painters' Society sits inside: shipping the physical work, getting it published, and teaching the craft in destination settings. A group is often legible through the company it keeps, and these are credible names for a painting association to align with.
It is worth being clear-eyed about who this does and does not serve. A hobbyist who paints occasionally for pleasure is unlikely to extract much from a calendar of juried competitions and membership dues, and might feel the structure is more apparatus than benefit. The National Oil and Acrylic Painters' Society is pitched at painters who treat the work as a vocation, who want their pieces in front of jurors, and who see the gap between Professional and Associate standing as something to close over time. For that audience, the offering is coherent: a clear medium focus, a recurring flagship show, supporting competitions, instruction, and a network of peers and industry partners.
The membership and competition mechanics are the most verifiable part of the whole proposition. Tiers are named and explained, the application windows for the marquee show are specific dates, online exhibitions exist alongside the in-person ones, and some of those online shows accept entries from outside the membership. The National Oil and Acrylic Painters' Society has built something an oil or acrylic painter can evaluate on its own terms: enter a Small Works show, test the jurying, see whether the recognition opens doors, and decide from there whether full membership and the "Best of America" cycle justify the commitment. For painters who enter the calendar seriously, The National Oil and Acrylic Painters' Society gives them something concrete to work toward rather than vague encouragement. The dated competition calendar, more than any description of mission, is what a prospective member can actually plan around.
