THE second-richest art prize in Britain, the #12,000 City of Glasgow
Lord Provost's Prize, has been won by the Glasgow-based artist Alison
Watt.
Miss Watt is best-known for her portrait of the Queen Mother, which
now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Her painting, Nude Adorned, was judged the best of more than 300
works, selected from 1100 entries, which will be shown from this Sunday
at the annual open exhibition of the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine
Arts in the McLellan Galleries.
The prize is second only in cash value to the Tate Gallery's #20,000
Turner Prize. The judges were the Lord Provost of Glasgow, Mr Robert
Innes, Scottish artist John Bellany, Glasgow museums' director Julian
Spalding, and the Glasgow museums' curator of art, Mr Hugh Stevenson.
The painting is a formal study of a female nude reclining on a couch
and partly draped with white sheets. Mr Bellany likened it to Manet's
Olympia seen in a Glasgow light.
Miss Watt, 27, was born in Greenock and studied at Glasgow School of
Art. She has made Glasgow her base for the past eight years, although
she has had a number of exhibitions in London and outside Britain.
She said: ''It is really special to me to receive something in Glasgow
because it is my adopted home town.
''The models that inspire me tend to have a very Celtic look. My
studio outlook is just trees and I do not think I would be able to
recreate that in London.''
Nude Adorned is the first in a series of nudes that Miss Watt plans to
show in an exhibition in Los Angeles in about three years.
Mr Spalding said after the announcement of the winner that the judges
were ''very impressed by the light in the painting''.
He said: ''It is very difficult to paint light and this appears to be
a Glasgow light.''
He added: ''This is one of the biggest prizes in Britain and we would
like to attract the major artists of Britain, not just Scotland. It
needs to have that to continue.''
Other awards announced yesterday were: the Teachers Whisky Travel
Scholarship of #2000 to Glasgow-based jeweller and craftsman Richard
Coley; Arthur Andersen Prize of #1000 to Keith Rand, a teacher at Duncan
of Jordanston; David Cargill Award and the Milly and Benno Schotz award
to Robin Hume, from Kirkoswald; NS Macfarlane Charitable Trust Award of
#2000 to Donald Clark, Edinburgh; James Torrance Memorial Award to
Christopher Wood, Edinburgh.
David Cargill Award for artists under 30, and the Cuthbert New Young
Artist Award to Mark I'Anson, 25, who graduated last year from the Gray
School of Art in Aberdeen; RGI Exhibitionship of #500 to Sarah McLaren,
a graduate of Edinburgh College of Art; Alexander Stone Foundation prize
of #1000 to Geoffrey Squire; Mabel Mackinlay Award of #1000 to Alex
Galt, Greenock; Armour Award to John Boyd; Royal College of Physicians
and Surgeons of Glasgow Award to Hamish MacDonald; Scottish Amicable
Prize of #1000 to Jim Pattison; Eastwood Publications Prize of #1000 to
Sheila Macmillan.
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