Popular Art That The Experts Shun

Interesting article in The Herald newspaper:

They are the most popular artists in Britain, but you will see no mention of them in any public gallery, culture programme or arts section. Doug Hyde, Fletcher Sibthorp and Sue Howells are among the best-selling artists in Britain, according to a new poll compiled by a leading arts business magazine.

The Secret of Drawing

The Secret of Drawing is a four part series, presented by Andrew Graham-Dixon, in which he explores how drawing has shaped our lives. Join him to discover the history of drawing and its relevance to the modern world.

Tax Breaks for Irish Artists

The Irish artistic world has been galvanised by proposals to scrap the country’s long-treasured tax breaks for artists, warning that such a move would spark a crisis.

A committee of the Irish parliament this week heard pleas for its continuation, its defenders arguing that its abolition would be disastrous for the thriving Irish arts scene.

The Irish Republic has long been intensely proud of the measure, dating back to the 1960s, that exempts from tax income by artists, writers, composers and sculptors from the sale of their works. It is said to have helped keep financially afloat struggling artists who might otherwise have been lost to the arts, while at the same time attracting creative people to the country.

Artist Patrick Caulfield dies at 69

British painter and printmaker Patrick Caulfield, noted for his spare, precise studies of interiors and still life, has died, a gallery representing him announced today. He was 69.

Ulster Museum to get £12m refurbishment

The Ulster Museum is to get a multi-million pound refurbishment to attract more visitors.

Almost £12m will be spent improving the interior of the Belfast building which houses collections of art, archaeology, local history and natural sciences.

New Da Vinci Sketch Discovered

A new picture by Leonardo Da Vinci has been discovered beneath one of the artist’s most famous works, it emerged today. Experts at the National Gallery in London found the drawing using infrared technology underneath The Virgin On The Rocks, which hangs in the gallery.

Giancarlo Neri’s huge table gives food for thought

The 30ft (9m) sculpture, The Writer, will be on Parliament Hill for four months before returning to Italy. The tribute to the loneliness of writing is meant to inspire visitors to the heath, which has associations with writers Keats and Coleridge.

Congo the chimp’s art fetches £14,000

Like so many artists, Congo spent most of his life being misunderstood. Although Picasso is reputed to have framed one of his works and hung it in his studio, most people dismissed the diminutive painter as nothing more than a brush-wielding chimp. But Congo, who was indeed a brush-wielding chimp, had the last laugh yesterday as three of his paintings sold for more than £14,000.

Another place by Antony Gormley

It is an unusual place for an Antony Gormley art installation: a windswept and rain-soaked beach on Merseyside. But yesterday, the first of 100 iron figures was put in place on Crosby beach. Seawater lapped around the feet of one of the statues, which became almost submerged at high tide, as an Irish ferry chugged past in the distance.

Winners of BP Portrait Award 2005

1st Prize - Dean Marsh
Dean Marsh (b.1968) is a London-based artist who following a Foundation course at Ravensbourne College of Design exhibited several times in the BP Portrait Award - in 1993, 1994, 1996 and 2000. He won fourth prize in 2003 for Man with Grey Scarfe and was commended in 2002 for his portrait of Rosalind Savill.

2nd Prize - Saul Robertson
Saul Robertson (b.1978) lives and works in Glasgow. In the past two years he has won both the David Cargill Senior Award and the David Cargill Award at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts and was Young Artist of the Year at the Hunting Art Prizes in 2001. He has exhibited extensively throughout Britain.

3rd Prize - Gregory Cumins
Gregory Cumins (b.1973) graduated in sculpture in 1999 from Paris’s École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts where he was taught by British sculptor Richard Deacon. He then worked in a website agency as a graphic designer and web-designer. In 2003 he started painting and has won the Prix spécial du Jury at this year’s Salon de Montrouge exhibition.

4th Prize - Conor Walton
Conor Walton (b.1970) lives and works in County Wicklow. Born in Dublin, he studied at the National College of Art and Design. Following his MA in Art History and Theory at the University of Essex, he went to Florence to study painting and old master techniques. He returned to Dublin in 1996, where his fourth solo exhibition will be held in June 2006.