16th September 2012 - Who's made a mark this week?

Winner of the John Moores Painting Prize 2012
Stevie Smith and the Willow'
2011, oil, enamel and acrylic on aluminium panel, 198.3 x 229 cm

© Sarah Pickstone

Some of you commented on the choice of shortlisted artwork for the John Moores Painting Prize in my recent post about John Moores Painting Prize 2012 - Shortlisted Artists.

We now know who won what is billed as "Britain's most prestigious painting prize"

Sarah Pickstone has won the biennial John Moores Painting Prize with 'Stevie Smith and the Willow' which references Stevie Smith's best known poem

This is a link to an item in The Poetry Archive and Stevie Smith talking about poetry and the poem Not Waving But Drowning.

She also talks about creating drawings to accompany her poems.

This is the Liverpool Daily Post article Sarah Pickstone wins John Moores Painting Prize with Stevie Smith picture which includes an interview with the winner.

More about the Exhibition

You can:

• view an online gallery of all the paintings - described by the Prize as "exciting and cutting edge paintings"
• see all the paintings selected for the exhibition and the associated artists commentary on the painting and CV in the John Moores 2012 Online Catalogue.  Bear in mind that this is a prize for contemporary painting.

Artists and Art Blogs


Drawing and Sketching

• Let's Draw Greenwich - 2nd Urban London Sketchers Sketchcrawl - last week was the lead-up to the sketchcrawl, on Saturday I spent a very sunny day in Greenwich and next week you can expect postings on Urban Sketchers London of who sketched what!  I did a triptych of the fantastic view from the top of the hill in the park - complete with equestrian arena for the Olympics - which is still there!
• Last Sunday I sketched the View from the Chartwell swimming pool - at the late Winston Churchill's former home.

Printmaking

• Every now and again I come across a good video about something unusual,  My post Hokusai and Hiroshige: Great Japanese Prints
• I commented that the BITE Exhibition really needed an explanation of the different forms of  printmaking to make it more accessible.  Lo and behold - artistsmakingprints (the BITE blog) now has A short guide to printmaking techniques

Art Business & Marketing

Making A Mark Opinion Poll - The Best Place to Sell Art

I provided feedback for this annual poll via three separate posts and associated charts.  This year I changed the focus of the poll to look at income (turnover in different places) separately from the profit from those same places

• 2012 Poll Results: What's the best place to sell art? (Part 1) - identified the four best places to sell art from the perspective of generating both revenue and profit
• What's the best place to sell art? (Part 2 - The Trends) - which considered selling art via the Artist's own efforts and selling on a commission basis in galleries via third parties.
• The Best Place to Sell Art - More Trends focuses on the less traditional places to sell art - temporary venues and online websites.

• I've neglected to start the September Making A Mark Poll so will do that tomorrow.  This s will be about the different ways people promote sales of their art.

More Art Business

• The Abundant Artist - which I recommend you bookmark - focuses on trying to figure out how to build a successful art business. Here are some interesting posts about selling art online:
• The Thriving Artist Survey Results looks at the lessons to be learned from what people do and what results they get - particularly in relation to ineffectual internet marketing
• Natasha Wescoat writes about How I Made $50,000 Selling Art on Facebook.  
• Alyson Stanfield (artbizblog) is recycling some of her useful past posts - this one is about How to Compel People to Click Through from Your Email to Your Website 

Art Collectors and Art Economy

How rich art collectors spend their money

• I came across an interesting magazine created by the Financial Times for those with more money than they have time to spend it - it offers advice on, guess - How to Spend it and has a section on Arts and Giving.  Here's a couple of articles on
• How to collect contemporary art
• The show must go online - which is about collecting digital art.  I guess if digital art is being collected by the very rich then now might be the time to start taking it seriously!
• Apparently wealthy collectors from Russia, India or the Middle East prefer to be in London - which is why big American galleries are also opening up branches in London - see New York eyes rich pickings in London
• Apparently rich collectors don't take being sued by a gallery lying down. If you've ever worried about a relationship with a gallery, check out how galleries and rich clients behave! Perelman, Gagosian Gallery Sue Each Other Over Art Sales

The Big Art Fair Season

• The Telegraph celebrated the beginning of the Art Fair season with an article - Art Sales: all the fun of the fairs begins
• The British Art Fair was on last week at the Royal College of Art.  I always forget it's on so didn't go!
• This is Adrian Searle's video review of the Liverpool Biennial which explores notions of hospitality.  It really doesn't make me want to rush up the M6!  If you're interested see http://www.biennial.com/ for more details

Arts Funding

• How deep do the arts council cuts go? asks Charlotte Higgins of the Observer 

Art Competitions

Prizewinners announced

• Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2012 - Shortlist announced - so what do you think of the shortlisted works - and which do you think will win?
• Karolina Glusiec wins £8,000 Jerwood Drawing Prize 2012 - what struck me was how different the artwork of the prizewinning artists was this year.  The exhibition for the Jerwood Drawing Prize has now opened at the Jerwood Space, Union Street, London SE1.  There are various talks and events during the course of the exhibition

Upcoming exhibitions

• The Exhibition for the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition (First Prize £10,000) opens at the Mall Galleries tomorrow for one week only - from 17th - 22nd September. There's supposed to be a series of workshops and discussions to mark the 25th anniversary of this prestigious competition - but I can't find any evidence of these on the websites of the Mall Galleries or Parker Harris! For details of artists' workshops during the exhibition please contact Parker Harris on 01372 462190 or watercolour@parkerharris.co.uk

Deadlines

• The deadline for entry to the £1,500 Discerning Eye Drawing Bursary is 24 September 2012.  The work of the five shortlisted artists will be shown as part of the ING Discerning Eye exhibition at the Mall Galleries. Click the link for further information and how to enter online.

Art Exhibitions

Exhibitions in London and the South East

Room 3 - Nature - works by Millais and Holman Hunt hang next to each other
(left to right) The Woodman's Daughter by Millais,
The Hireling Shepherd by Holman Hunt,
Ophelia by Millais

• I've started my review of the new major exhibition at Tate Britain which opened to the public last week - in Review - Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde at Tate Britain
• I've been to see Taking a Closer Look - digital botanical illustrations by Niki Simpson (4 Sept to 9 Dec 2012) at the Lindley Library at RHS Wisley.  This is Niki Simpson's website.  You can typically see Niki's artwork displayed in Botanical gardens - see her Exhibitions list
Niki combines the scientific standards of traditional artwork, photographic realism and the application of digital technology. Her approach to botanical illustration has been described as groundbreaking.
• BITE is now over - however I recommend both it and the RE Open to printmakers around the UK who are interested in entering open competitions for printmakers.  See my Review: BITE 2012 - Artists making prints
• I went to the PV of the Florum exhibition in Kent - botanical art fans should enjoy the images - see Review: Florum 2012.  Susan Christopher Coulson won the first Elizabeth Smail Memorial Award

Exhibitions in the rest of the UK

• Beyond Limits is an annual exhibition.  This time, for the very first time, it features the work of just one artist Barry Flanagan - with hares dancing their way round the grounds of Chatsworth House - home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire.  You can see images of the huge rabbit sculptures in The Telegraph's slideshow - Beyond Limits 2012: Barry Flanagan's rabbit sculptures at Chatsworth House

USA Exhibitions

• As I recount in my post - you can now visit Winslow Homer's Studio at Prout Neck and view an exhibition associated with the rehabilitation of the house and studio
• Duane Keiser (Keiser on Painting) comments on the recent exhibition of Whistler at Freer Gallery.  (You can find out more about painter/printmaker James McNeill Whistler in About James McNeill Whistler - American Artist)

Art Education

Workshops and Classes

• The Royal Watercolour Society have a very extensive set of workshops and classes - see Events.  I've booked for the Languages of Landscape Study Day at Tate Britain

Colour

• Mitchell Albala (Essential Concepts of Landscape Painting) writes about Ways of Interpreting Color: In the Studio vs. Plein Air

Copyright

• The final act in the Shepard Fairey HOPE Poster Saga comes as Presidential election campaigns get underway - one whole term after President Obama became President.  Artdaily reported No jail time for Obama 'HOPE' poster artist; ordered to do 300 hours of community service.  However, in addition, Shepard Fairey also has to (1) commit no crimes during two years of probation and (2) pay a $25,000 fine to the U.S. government.   It was only his charity work which led to his escape from a prison sentence.  I wonder if he'll be tempted to do another poster - after asking permission for use of the photo from the photographer this time!

Fairey has said he earned "modest" profits of $150,000 while a forensic accountant hired by the AP and cited in government papers estimated that Fairey earned gross profit of more than $1 million and a licensee of one of his companies earned about $988,000 (ArtDaily).

• Sydney seems to be red hot on finding out those people who plagiarise when they create their work.  See Second Sydney plagiarism claim

Techies

Do you have a problem leaving comments on Blogger blogs?  I'd like to know if anybody else is having difficulties leaving comments on their own blog or my blogs.  The reason for asking is that this week I suddenly could not post a comment to my own blogger blog.  I could moderate the comments of others and access the dashboard and publish posts - but I couldn't leave a comment.  However there was no problem in Firefox - just Chrome!

The problem was resolved in stopping my comments page from being embedded.  In other formats my Google account was recognised and I could leave comments.

Now I'm realising that embedded comment pages on other blogs are also inaccessible.

Do you have an embedded comments page and have you had problems?

and finally......

First he's a Doctor, then he becomes a TV pundit and now it would seem he's an artist and has been making paintings for the last 20 years!  See Harry Hill's 'secret' paintings at Edinburgh Art Festival