Review: Landscape Artist of the Year 2024 - The £10,000 Sustainable Orkney Commission

This review of the £10,000 commission won by the winner of Landscape Artist of the Year is always a really odd review to write.  This post is about why - and includes:

• the £10,000 Commission
• the challenge of the Landscape Artist of the Year commission
• the Commission Programme
• the Commission Painting produced by the winner of Landscape Artist of the Year 2023.
• how you can see it at the Science Museum.

There are two main aspects to the review

• the programme
• the commission artwork

I know all I'm doing is looking to see whether, to me, it looks like an artwork worth £10,000 - and hence the client has not been diddled.

In this instance Monica very clearly demonstrated in her commission painting produced for the Final - of her neighbourhood where she lives - that she's clearly capable of a lot more than the small paintings she was producing in just 4 hours (for the heat, semi-finals and final).

The £10,000 Commission

First - a quick preliminary - about the Commission

The £10,000 Commission is, of course, the Prize for winning Landscape Artist of the Year 2024.  (See my blog post for my review of the Final - Monica Popham wins Landscape Artist of the Year 2024)

The Client for the Commission is the Science Museum.

The Science Museum in Exhibition Road in South Kensington.

The 2024 Landscape Artist of the Year prize was a commission by the Science Museum Group to capture the story of Orkney's central role in the UK's transition to low-carbon, renewable energy.

Does the client get the artwork irrespective of what sort of artwork the winning artist turns out? I thought there must be something in the rules somewhere which indicates "best efforts" etc. But instead I found this

If the Winner rejects the Winner’s Prize or otherwise fails to carry out the creation of the Winner’s Prize Artwork on such dates and times and locations required by the Producer, then the Producer reserves the right to take the Winner’s Prize away from the Winner and the Producer shall be entitled to select another Winner.  

The Challenge of the Commission

I've always thought that the commission is typically a prestigious view for a prestigious client. In other words it:

• brings a very worthwhile prize pot 
• alongside something which is a difficult challenge to confront and address. 

Plus you might get to go to an interesting place.