The Threadneedle Prize for painting and sculpture is an annual art prize, which showcases the best in contemporary painting and sculpture. It was launched by the Mall Galleries in 2008. The prize is open to any artist, eighteen or over, who is living or working in the UK or Continental Europe.
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History
The Threadneedle Prize was launched in 2008 to support the popular interest in figurative art. It was organised by the Federation of British Artists and offered a prize of £25,000. The new competition coincided with a move by the rival Turner Prize away from painting and sculpture and, in some eyes, becoming "trivial and dull". Art critic Brian Sewell welcomed the new prize, though complained that the majority of entries were disappointing, concluding that the "new prize is capable of achieving a greater good than any other, but it must, without becoming quite as predictable as the Turner Prize... achieve next year a far higher level of distinction."
In 2009 almost half of the 80 final exhibits at the Mall Galleries were portrait paintings, in a wide variety of styles.
By 2013 the number of exhibits had increased to 111, chosen from over 3,500 entries.
Prizes
In the first year of the competition there was a single prize of £25,000. In 2010 the Visitors’ Choice Prize, worth £10,000, was introduced. The two major prizes available are the Threadneedle Prize and the Visitor’ Choice Prize. In 2012 the Threadneedle Prize was increased from £25,000 to £30,000 making it the largest prize for single work of art in the UK. For the Threadneedle Prize, a panel of selectors shortlist six works and then choose the winner of the £30,000 prize. Two finalists for the Visitors' Choice Prize are awarded £500. Each of the five finalists for the Threadneedle Prize receives £1,000. In 2013 there are eight prizes totalling £46,000.
Selectors have included artists, critics and curators Peter Randall-Page, Ed Vaizey, Michael Sandle, Jock McFadyen, Daphne Todd, Richard Cork and Desmond Shawe-Taylor.
It is sponsored by Threadneedle Asset Management.
Prize winners
Winner - Tina Jenkins, Bed Head, (painting on plastic sheeting}
Visitors' Choice - Ben Johnson, Room of the Revolutionary, (Acrylic on linen)
Joint winner - Clare McCormack, Dead Labour/Dead Labourer (portrait)
Joint winner - Lisa Wright, The Guilty's Gaze on the Innocent (portrait)
Visitors' Choice - Conrad Engelhardt, Aung San Suu Kyi (wine cork portrait)
Winner - Ben Greener, My Feet (sculpture)
Visitors' Choice - Robert Truscott, Defeat (sculpture)
Winner - Henrietta Simson, Bad Government (After Lorenzetti) (painting)
Visitors Choice - Nicholas McLeod, Drained (painting)
Winner - Patricia Cain, Building the Riverside Museum (pastel drawing)
Visitors Choice - Fionnuala Boyd and Les Evans, Clee Hill 2009 (landscape painting)
Winner - Sheila Wallis (naked self-portrait)
Emerging Artist Prize - Aishan Yu
Winner - Nina Murdoch, Untitled (painting)
Selectors Choice - Tim Shaw, Tank on Fire (sculpture)