Landscape Painting: 2013 Jolomo Bank of Scotland Awards - Call for Entries

Artists who live and work in Scotland - and paint the Scottish landscape - have the opportunity to win the £25,000 First Prize in The Jolomo Bank of Scotland Awards 2013 for Scottish Landscape Painting.

The closing date for this prestigious landscape painting competition is 14th January 2013.  

The Jolomo Foundation website

The award in 2013 coincides with the Year of Natural Scotland.  This is the website About Natural Scotland

You can find out who can enter what and how to enter on their website.

As I usually do for all major art competitions, I've re-summarised the 'call for entries' information below and highlighted aspects which are less than clear with the information provided to date. All quotations are from the Jolomo Awards website

This year for the first time, you can also find the awards on Facebook - The Jolomo Awards - although I don't think they've quite got the hang of images on facebook yet.  The only ones I can see are blurry or too small.

Aim of the Awards


The Awards aim to:

• reward painters living or working in Scotland and committed to painting the Scottish landscape
• recognise artists who would benefit from support in order to pursue painting as a full-time career. 
• offer a significant opportunity for landscape painters to develop their practice and explore new directions in their work.

Exhibition

The shortlisted artists will be annouced in April 2013.  An exhibition of the work of the shortlisted artists will be held at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum in May 2013.

Awards

The Jolomo Bank of Scotland Awards will be presented in June 2013. The awards are as follows:

• Main/First prize: £25,000
• Runners Up Prizes: - share £10,000 (£6,000 and £4,000)

The winners will be annouced at a Gala Dinner at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum on 19th June 2013.

It's unclear who the judges are in 2013 - however their word is final!

Context: This is the fourth time these Awards have been offered - with competitions in 2007, 2009 and 2011. The winner of the Jolomo Award in 2011 was Calum McClure, 24, from Edinburgh (winning £25,000), Runners-up were Beth Robertston Fiddes, 39, from Edinburgh (£6,000) and Katie Pope, 28, from Glasgow (£4,000) (see my post see my 2011 post on The Art of the Landscape blog Scottish Landscape Painting and a £25,000 prize

“Since winning the Award, I have exhibited work around Scotland as well as further afield in London, Germany and the USA. Three years on from winning the Jolomo Award, it continues to assist my development as an artist. I have been able to develop my work without worrying about where the next sale will come from. This is a luxury few artists enjoy and I hope it will allow me to continue to create better work.” 2009 Winner: Keith Salmon, 52 

Who can enter

The Jolomo Bank of Scotland Awards are open to EMERGING artists who are committed to painting the Scottish landscape. 

In my opinion, the entry criteria for the artist are both more accessible and more "elitist" than most.  It seems to me they're making a genuine effort to make the Awards more inclusive with respect to those who have special needs. At the same time they seem to be endeavouring to eliminate entries from those who may aspire but don't yet have the appropriate level of skill or practice (ie those who have neither the aspiration nor practice development to make it as a full-time professional artist).  Essentially I interpret it as a competition for painters who already paint at a professional level in terms of practice and who now want to pursue their painting on a full-time professional basis.

It's simply not a competition for hobby painters or those who have no longer term aspirations.

It doesn't say "If you've made it already don't bother" however I suspect if you count yourself as a professional painter already but have been emerging for several years you might just want to check out whether you're eligible!

Painters who can enter this competition:

• currently live and work in Scotland 
• are aged 18 or over on 1st January 2013.  Note that the Awards Judging Panel recognises that artists may “emerge” at any age!
• have studied, or are studying, at a college of art or in an art discipline at a university, further education college or independent art college, however - see the caveat below

Should more than five years have passed since studying, or if the applicant has no formal qualification, the body of work submitted must be proposed and approved by a suitably qualified referee, e.g. art lecturer, teacher, gallery owner.

The Jolomo Bank of Scotland Awards welcomes entries from artists with special needs.  (Note:  That's a first in entry criteria - I don't ever recall seeing that before and kudos to these Awards for making that clear!)

Painters who cannot enter this competition

The winners and runners-up of the 2007, 2009 & 2011 Awards may NOT enter the 2013 Awards. 

In my view that's a bit tough, on the runners up. Winners of the BP Portrait Prize have come from runners up in previous years.

What you can enter

This is NOT just about one painting

The portfolio of work that comprises the entry should comprise:

• one central, titled image which should be a painting 
• between five and ten supporting images that are different from the central image. Supporting images may be paintings, sketches or drawings. 
• All images in the portfolio should reference the titles, metric sizes, medium used and the year the work was made. Don't forget to also add in your name on the file of the image!
• The entrant’s full Curriculum Vitae (see my info website  How to write an Artist's Resume or CV)

Availability of work

Entries by shortlisted artists should be available for an exhibition at the time of the presentation of The Jolomo Bank of Scotland Awards 2013 and for a further exhibition later in the year.

Natural Scotland

There's no suggestion that a painter entering this competition should follow Natural Scotland's themes.  However if I was entering this competition I'd be taking a jolly good long hard look at the eight themes identified for Year of Natural Scotland and think about any potential relevance they might have.

How to Enter
This is a competition which requires the artwork to be submitted via a CD-Rom.  If you need help with this you need to start asking for help NOW.


Application form: This is the application form (download pdf file)

Initial application: This is what you need to submit - by MAIL - to The Jolomo Foundation by the closing date of 14th January 2013:

• Images of a body of work (as per 'what to enter') on a CD-ROM in high resolution jpeg format (that normally means 300dpi; note that they do NOT want tiff format) 
• Completed application form 
• Titles, metric sizes, medium used and year completed for all images (Tip - When submitting work and trying to make sure that organisers understand what is what, I usually create a table in Word and then insert a small thumbnail image of the work and then fill in the rest of the information in different columns)
• Curriculum Vitae 
• Entry fee of £25.00

Note no entries cam or should be submitted via email.  (That's because high resolution images are enormous and would take forever to submit and download!)

Shortlisted entrants: Shortlisting will take place in April 2012.  It's unclear how long artists have to submit their original work.  There is no deadline.  I suspect it might be a case of turn up on the allotted day with your work.

In 2011, the judges shortlisted 60 artists and then reduced this number down to a final shortlist of 7.  This process involves two aspects which many artists do not normally submit to competitions:

• an interview 
• a statement of artistic practice.

Shortlisted artists will also be advised of supporting work required by the judges

Entrants shortlisted for The Jolomo Bank of Scotland Awards 2013 will be notified by 1st April 2013. Thereafter, the shortlisted artists will be interviewed by the Judging Panel at the same time as submitting the originals of their entries.
It is planned that the interview process will be completed by 30th April 2013.

Packaging: As per usual all the costs associated with packaging and transport are down to the artist.

The transport and packing of entries is the responsibility of the entrant. Further, shortlisted entries are submitted at the artist’s own risk. Neither The Jolomo Foundation nor any sponsor of The Jolomo Bank of Scotland Awards 2013 will accept responsibility for any loss or damage to the shortlisted entries.

HOWEVER It's unclear to me what the deadline is for the submission of original work and whether the work needs to be submitted in packaging or unpacked.  Most competitions normally go for the latter.  In which case the question arises of who gets to look after the packing materials - and if it's the artist then that means you need to submit in person or have a very reliable art courier who will keep and repack the work in due cours

Note: The Jolomo Bank of Scotland Awards were founded by the renowned Scottish artist John Lowrie Morrison - known as “Jolomo” - in 2006 to promote and encourage the painting of the Scottish landscape.  The Jolomo Bank of Scotland Awards are the biggest art awards in Scotland and the largest privately funded art awards in the UK. The Jolomo Foundation is a charitable organisation founded in 2005 to promote painting and the teaching of painting in Scotland

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Let me know what you think about this award - and awards and competitions for landscape painting in the UK

• Is having an award specifically for landscape painting a good thing?
• Will you be entering this art competition?
• Do you think the rest of the UL also need to have an awards scheme for landscape painting?