The £10,000 Landscape Artist of the Year Commission

The prize for the Landscape Artist of the Year this year was to take on and complete a £10,000 commission to commemorate Dinas Oleu for the National Trust.

This post is a review of the final episode of the Landscape Artist of the Year Series which started in January and finished last week. with Episode 9 which focused on the development of the commission and then its unveiling.

Ophelia Redpath and the Landscape Artist of the Year Judges
looking at the Commission Painting

It follows on from Ophelia Redpath wins Landscape Artist of the Year 2021 at Trinity Buoy Wharf - my post about the Final of the competition.

"She's our winner because she intrigues us - she's really accomplished and peculiar" Kate Bryan

My post covers:

• the subject of the commission
• background / relevant history re landscape painting
• the location
• collecting information and recording it 
• sorting, sifting, percolating, creating
• painting the final painting.

I very much RECOMMEND you watch the programme as it was a very interesting insight into the artistic process of one artist - and how filming can give you one story and the artist gives you another.

Why Dinas Oleu?

Dinas Oleu was the very first gift of land to the newly conceived National Trust - after its foundation in 1895. The Trust aimed to preserve places of historic interest and/or natural beauty

It came from Fanny Talbot who was a landowner and philanthropist

The Commission Process

The Commission process follows a not untypical process - except for the fact that the artist has got a camera crew along wanting nice views for the programme.

At one point I wrote down what appeared to be the process being followed by Ophelia Redpath

• receive commission
• get background 
• visit location - and observe the view (or views)
• collect information via observation, sketching and photographs
• generate ideas / possibilities 
• become confused by the scope and range of source material - but keep going
• allow information to percolate
• ponder on the strong ideas
• begin painting

The Commission

Every year a different organisation provides both the brief and budget for the commission. This year it was the National Trust and Justin Albert, Head of National Trust Wales provided the brief for the commission when they met at Penrhyn Castle (of the formidable gardens).

His criteria were that:

• she paint Dinas Oleu - a rocky outcrop above the fishing village of Barmouth in Wet Wales 
• the painting reflects the principles of the National trust 
• the painting will meld the people and the landscape

The Background 

Kathleen Soriano provided an interesting commentary on the development of landscape painting in the UK and the role of a Welsh artist called Richard Wilson who was one of the founder members of the Royal Academy of Arts and a leader of landscape painting in the UK - associated with the development of painting the "sublime" in landscapes - conveying both mood and meaning, power and spirit in the landscape.

In particular she identified that he'd painted locally at Cadair Idris - and consequently Ophelia slogged her way up the peaks to the same spot - to find a low cloudline and the back was in the cloud and Llyn Cau was a dense black! (The geomorphologist/geologist in me loves any paintings of glacial erosion - including cwms - such as the one in Wilson's painting) 

Location

The location is remote and the views are sensational! (see next image below)

Dinas Oleu is a 4.5 acres (1.8 ha) stretch of rugged hillside above the seaside/fishing village of Barmouth in West Wales. A further 13 acres (5.3 ha) have since it was gifted to the National Trust.  It's located on the coast in the southern part of Snowdonia - looking out into Cardigan Bay and is very remote.

 Hiking and Sketching

The hiking comes first - and then the sketching

There seemed to be an awful lot of walking - then climbing up some VERY VERY steep slopes - involved in getting to various places where she wanted to go - and (I'm guessing) the filming team wanted her to go for their storyline around Richard Wilson.

I was left wondering what would have happened if somebody like me had won. I have to walk up hills backwards due to the limited flexion in my ankles!

Ophelia climbing up the slopes of Dinas Oleu

"It's a really, really, BIG, BIG scene .......I'm feeling quite overwhelmed" Ophelia

Call for Entries: New English Art Club Annual Exhibition 2021

The deadline for open entries for the 2021 Annual Exhibition of the New English Art Club (NEAC) at the Mall Galleries is just over six weeks away - Friday 30th April, 12 noon.

The exhibition is currently scheduled for 25th June to 3rd July

I always go back to basics and look at how an art society describes itself. In principle this should help with determining what sort of art is appropriate for the exhibition.

Last year that the description had changed - but remains the same this year.

The New English Art Club is an elected society of contemporary painters whose ethos resides in art informed by the visual world and personal interpretation.

Our Annual Exhibition is a showcase not only for its members but also for aspiring artists: with a history going back more than a hundred years, it is an opportunity for work to be seen alongside some of the best artists painting today, held at Mall Galleries in London.

All the images in this post comes from the annual exhibition in 2020.

Paintings in the 2020 exhibition

    

The nature of the NEAC Annual Exhibition

I'll reiterate below a number of important points about this exhibition and the association open submission

If you are considering whether to submit art via the open entry, it's worth paying regard to various aspects of the NEAC Open Exhibition. These are:

• LOTS of artists want to be a member of NEAC. (This page explains their route to membership). For example, very many members of the OTHER art societies based at the Mall Galleries would like to be a member of NEAC - so your competition is people who have already been elevated to membership of other societies belonging to the Federation of British Artists.
• that's because historically it's had
• status - this art society was established by people who broke away from the Royal Academy of Arts
• a good reputation (historically) for displaying lots of good quality artwork. Latterly I've argued that this has wavered a bit at times. 
• over £10,000 in monetary awards are now available - some of which can only be won by a non-member or an emerging artist.
• around 75% of the artworks hung are by members of NEAC
• around 20% of artworks hung come from the open and are 
• by artists who are not a member of any art society based at the Mall Galleries. 
• This is a LOT LOWER than the equivalent percentage for ALL other FBA Societies.

You can read about the ethos of NEAC and the Metrics (numbers / performance indicators) associated with the club in my call for entries last year. There's no point in updating this yet as 2020 was such a very odd year.

Different perspectives and media

Prizes & Awards

There are a number of prizes and awards - which are open to all artists submitting work via the open entry. These include:

Monetary Awards

• The Doreen McIntosh Prize: £5,000. In order to reflect the best in figurative painting in British Art, The Doreen McIntosh Prize is for an artist whose work fulfils the New English Art Club’s ideals of rigour, immediate engagement with the visual and a searching attitude.
• Chris Beetles Gallery Prize for Figurative Art: £2,500 for a non-member artist. Selected by Chris Beetles of Chris Beetles Gallery, St James's, London
• The Hermione Hammond Drawing Award: £2,000 for a drawing by an emerging artist aged 35 or under
• The Bowyer Drawing Prize: £500

Art Materials

• The Winsor & Newton Award: Art materials to the value of £500
• The Peter Ashley Framing Prize, presented by The Artistic Framing Company: A bespoke handmade picture frame will be created for the winning work, to the value of £500

Publication Awards

• The Dry Red Press Award: The winning work will be published as a greeting card in the Dry Red Press 'Prize Winners' range, with royalties from the sale of the cards going to the artist

You can see what artwork won which prize last year in 

• the 2020 Prizes Page on the NEAC website - plus videos by the prizewinners
• my blog post New English Art Club - Annual Exhibition 2020 (Part 2) - in which you can see the artworks framed and hanging on the wall

This is the video by Jason Line, the chap who produced an excellent drawing to win The Bowyer Drawing Prize in 2020.

Call for Entries

This is an OPEN EXHIBITION. You can find Information about the NEAC exhibition on the Mall Galleries Website.

West Gallery

Eligible artists: WHO can Submit?

Artists are invited to submit work for exhibition alongside members of the New English Art Club at their Annual Exhibition 2021 

Any artist, over the age of 18 - living anywhere in the world - can submit artwork to this exhibition. Both members of NEAC and other international or British artists are invited to submit artwork for consideration.

NEXT there are two DIFFERENT sets of information.

• The first are the terms of entry which are specific to this NEAC exhibition are in "What can you submit?" below
• the second is the standard/universal Generic Terms and Conditions relevant to submissions to ANY exhibition at the Mall Galleries by a society which is a member of the Federation of British Artists re. How to Submit and other Terms and Conditions of Entry.

Eligible artwork: WHAT can you submit?

Mall Galleries is 50 years old and the FBA is 60!

Two anniversaries

In February, two anniversaries occurred

• the Federation of British Artists achieved its "Diamond Jubilee"  having been 
• established as a Company Limited by Guarantee - following a Memorandum and Articles of Association dated 13th February 1961; and 
• registered as a Charity with the Charities Commission (see website)

The Federation provides exhibition facilities and organises open art exhibitions for public viewing in the Mall Galleries. The open exhibitions provide opportunities for developing artists to exhibit alongside more established artists. Our education programme incorporates collaboration with people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities.

• It also acts on behalf of its nine members societies, eight of which are also charities.  
• the FBA was originally formed when this group of national Art Societies joined together to offer each other mutual support in exhibiting their members’ works.
• the Mall Galleries celebrated its 50th anniversary. The Mall Galleries were opened by HM The Queen on 25 February 1971 - as a brand new gallery in London.  It provides a home for the Federation of British Artists.  It is also the trading side of the operation of the exhibitions and events which happen at the Mall Galleries - covenanting the profits of Mall Galleries Trading Limited to the FBA.  In doing so it helps.....
• support the 500 member artists of the 9 Art Societies that make up the FBA. 
• enables c.5,000 other artists get their work exhibited in a prestigious Central London Gallery each year. That's a LOT OF ARTISTS!
• provide much enjoyment to all those who travel from near and far to visit the art exhibitions in the Mall Galleries.

Sadly, what should have been a time to celebrate properly has instead morphed into recognition online only.

It's time to take stock....

Just imagine, for a moment, if there were no Mall Galleries...............

What's been happening in the last 12 months?

The Mall Galleries - closed most of the last 12 months

The pandemic - and associated lockdowns and constraints on opening - in 2020 and the beginning of 2021 - has created a very challenging time for both the FBA, its societies and the Mall Galleries.

• The Gallery has been open for only a few weeks in the last 12 months. It closed from March - August 2020 and again from November until now - with a brief period of opening in early December. 
• It had to create 
• a brand new way of running exhibitions - which worked really well - and 
• a brand new way of booking visits to them (to keep numbers under control and facilitate contact tracing)
• It has been continuing to run the annual exhibitions of the FBA Societies - not knowing whether and when they will run in reality (I remember well the Annual Exhibition of the RI being postponed twice from April before it finally opened in September)
• My exhibition reviews this year have been much reduced! see 
• my first exhibition at the Mall Galleries in six months was held by the RI - which got postponed twice (moved from April to September 2020)- see Review: 208th Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours
• the second society to exhibit were the portrait painters - see Review: Annual Exhibition 2020 of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters
• the RSMA (I think) opened at its normal time - see Review: Royal Society of Marine Artists Annual Exhibition 2020 It had LOTS of red dots!
• the SWLA closed early due to the second lockdown - but I got to see it before it did - see
• SWLA's new website and annual exhibition closing early
• NEAC was also caught by both the first and second lockdown - and finished one day before the third! See New English Art Club - Annual Exhibition 2020 (Part 1) and the New English Art Club - Annual Exhibition 2020 (Part 2) - but also had the very first virtual exhibition (see below)
• The Annual Exhibition of the Pastel Society has had to be postponed - but is available to view online and (fingers crossed) will be in the Gallery later this year
• It has delivered one virtual exhibition - of an exhibition hung for opening - but unable to do so until allowed to do so - see A Virtual New English Art Club Annual Exhibition 2020 - online now!
• It has continued to achieve sales for the member artists and those selected for the open entry via online exhibitions of the artwork. I had a discussion with the Chair of one society recently who said sales had held up remarkably well
• However it has lost 
• sales associated with the shop - which is now very successful and generates significant income. 
• income generated by third party / corporate events in the Galleries - again an important source of income.

It will, of course, have received grants for the government to offset its running costs and provide furlough income for its employees. 

However it will face a very different set of numbers in its accounts in 2020 and 2021.

We receive no on-going public funding. With the doors of the gallery closed, we have lost a large source of income that we usually obtain from gallery rental and corporate events in the evenings which helped to fund our Exhibitions and Events.

Which is one of the reasons why it has now created a NEW DONATION PAGE.

A NEW DONATION PAGE

We are a registered charity, providing opportunities for developing and established artists. Any amount will be greatly appreciated.

The banner image for the Donation Page reflects the opening exhibition 50 years ago.

Ophelia Redpath wins Landscape Artist of the Year 2021 at Trinity Buoy Wharf

This is about the Final - last August - of Series 6 of Landscape Artist of the Year. 

The three finalists - with their final pod paintings - waiting for the decision

The Location

The Location of the Final of Landscape Artist of the Year was Trinity Buoy Wharf.

The view from the pods - located at Trinity Buoy Wharf

I know it reasonably well having been there before - for sketching trips and exhibitions. The thing which has struck me each time is 

• what a huge view it has of the bend in the Thames it is sooooooooooo panoramic!
• how that wharf is VERY exposed to wind and weather - should it choose to get nasty.  I speak as one who tried sketching there one Sunday morning when I spent a lot of the time sitting inside the cafe - Fat Boy's Diner - sketching out the window while BP Portrait Award winner Susan du Toit sketched me!

View of the tiny pods - at Trinity Buoy Wharf
next to the Trinity light House and bridge to the pontoon

The Weather

The weather was dry and seemed to produce some interesting skies during the course of the day. It looked as if it started warm but got progressively cooler.

A TV Journey

The Artists 

As noted in my last post, it's an all female final for the second year running and the third female winner on the trot - after Jen Gash and Fujiko Rose in 2018 (review) and 2019 (review)  respectively. (This series would have run in 2020 if things had been normal).

(Left to right) Shelagh Casebourne, Ophelia Redpath and Claire Lord - socially distancing

The Heats

All good reality competitions on the television seem to want to be like a "Journey" so, as last year, I thought I'd record what I'd noted - and what was reiterated by the Judges in the programmes.

• Shelagh Casebourne - won Heat 1 at Chartwell (House) when she painted a splendid view of the House from a very difficult perspective looking upwards. She then looked as if he was losing her way in the Semi Finals before storming to the finish with a few tweaks which made all the difference. She has a process and knows what works for her - and her paintings look more and more like those of Courbet!
• Ophelia Redpath - won Heat 3 at the West Reservoir Centre Terrace. While writing my review of the Semi Finals I realised she was probably the most experienced in the show - having been an artist for some 30 years. I thought Ophelia would do well having seen her start her painting. Her experience tells her how long it takes to paint her picture - and how best to compose it - and I was right. Plus by the end of the semi-finals I was now in no doubt that the Judges were enamoured with her very unique magic realism style.
• Clare Lord - won Heat 5 at West Wycombe House - from an awful view which required an assertive crop. She was then brave and energetic in the semi-final and completed the biggest painting demonstrating she has no inhibitions about painting big.

See also Review: Semi Finals of Landscape Artist of the Year 2021 at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. For me they finished Ophelia, Shelagh and then Clare at the semi-final stage.

The Final

The Final comprised two halves

• pod painting within 4 hours at Trinity Buoy Wharf
• commissions - of three locations - within Kew Gardens

I'll deal with each in turn

Pod Paintings

Kate Bryan commented at the beginning that this was the Final and they needed to make it really hard! That was an understatement! 

Tai spoke at length about how much he hated the view. He thought it represented chaos

"There is nothing here I'd want to paint. I look out there and I want to despair" Tai Shan Shierenberg

Which says a lot about the very sensible decisions of all the Finalists to avoid painting the dome in its entirety and instead find views and motifs which interested them and which they thought they could complete in four hours.

Commissions

Given the pandemic, the competition was unable to do what it normally does and ask the artists to paint a very specific place for a specific organisation.

Instead they were asked to paint three locations in Kew Gardens on the same day - which minimised the amount of travelling the film crew had and provided vast open spaces.

• Shelagh had to paint the Palm House - and had the choice of inside or out
• Ophelia had to paint the Japanese Landscape Garden - which is a delight in one of the quieter corners of the garden
• Clare had to paint the (long) Lake (and Sackler Crossing) in the centre of the Gardens

The Commissions allow the artists to paint away from the location and take as much or as little time as they liked for their paintings.

In a way it's the best indicator there is of whether or not the artist is up to painting the location for the final commission. 

In my opinion it's often the case that the competition is finally decided by the Commission Paintings rather than the 4 hour pod painting - where the artist has no option as to how they locate themselves. 

Mary Seacole Portrait Statue Commission

This is a Call for Entries for Sculptors. A campaign has been launched to install the first statue of a black woman to celebrate the life and work of Mary Jane Seacole (1805 – 1881) in the interior of in one of Liverpool’s most iconic buildings - the Grade I Listed St George’s Hall.

This is about how you can submit an expression of interest in fulfilling this commission. 

Mary Seacole
(credit: Mary Seacole Trust)

Below I've divided the information about this commission into:

• About the Commission
• About Mary Seacole
• About St. George's Hall
• What sculptors should do next

One of two known photographs of Mary Seacole,
taken for a carte de visite by Maull & Company in London (c. 1873)

About the Commission