Results of the Founders’ Sculpture Prize 2010/11
The third competition for the biennial Founders’ Sculpture Prize, launched last autumn, attracted some 35 entries. On the one hand, that was a smaller field than the entrants for each of the first two competitions. On the other hand, as the competition progressed, it became apparent that the quality had improved in inverse proportion to the quantity.
The criteria for the competition remained unchanged: that is to say, the Prize aims to promote figurative sculpture based on the human form and its translation into bronze, and eligibility is limited to sculptors in the first ten years of their sculpting careers. The Prize has kept substantially the same sponsors: the Company, the Gilbert Bayes Trust, the Society of Portrait Sculptors, and Zahra Modern Art Foundries, in succession (both in sponsorship and business) to the now defunct Morris Singer Foundry.
The first round was judged in December, just before Christmas, when the 35 entrants were whittled down to five finalists. The judges were: Tony Newman, for the Company; Nigel Boonham and Neal French, for the Society of Portrait Sculptors; Tessa Murdoch, from the V&A; Nasser Azam, the proprietor of Zahra; and Sonia Solicari, who has succeeded the late Vivien Knight as Curator of the Guildhall Art Gallery, which will host the Prize’s show in October.
The five selected finalists were: Nanna Drewes Brondum (a finalist for the third time), Pete Sherrard, Grant McIntyre, Christopher Parr and Rebecca Lyne as a joint entry, and John Ensor. At ‘the final’ on 19 April, the judges were impressed by the high standard of the maquettes and ideas submitted by all the finalists: there was no Robinsonian ‘weak link’. Nevertheless, the judges had little difficulty in selecting their winner, John Ensor, from Cornwall, although for the first time they also nominated a runner-up, Nanna Brondum, whose maquette will therefore be cast in bronze and retained by the Company, along with the winner’s full-size piece.
The Guildhall Art Gallery remains very enthusiastic about its involvement with the Prize, and the artistic cooperation of City institutions which the Prize now represents. It is likely that the Gallery will give permanent house-room to a display of the winning sculptures resulting from each competition for the Prize, on loan from the Company as trustee.
RCSH
28 April 2011