Threadneedle Prize 2011

HENRIETTA SIMSON Wins £25,000 Threadneedle Prize 2011

Seven of the artworks were shortlisted for this year’s £25,000 Threadneedle Prize.  The winner chosen by the selectors was announced by Clemency Burton-Hill at an awards ceremony on Wednesday 5 October.  The runner-ups each received £1,000. The exhibition will be on display at the Mall Galleries until 8 October 2011. A further £10,000 Visitors’ Choice prize was awarded to the work that received the highest number of public votes during the exhibition. This was awarded to Nicholas McLeod. In a departure from previous years, all 52 works on display, including the shortlist, was  eligible to win this public prize.The Threadneedle Prize is the UK’s leading showcase for contemporary paintings and sculptures that promote the practice of representational art, but challenge its language and assumptions.  All works in the exhibition are sourced through open submission and this year the selectors reviewed a record of 4,350 entries, more than double the number received in previous years.Selectors for this year’s prize-winner and exhibition are: Julie Lomax, London Head of Visual Arts, Arts Council England, Lisa Milroy, Artist and Head of Graduate Painting, Slade School of Fine Art and Godfrey Worsdale, Director of BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art.  Godfrey Worsdale is also a juror for the 2011 Turner Prize.Six of the seven shortlisted artists were women, following an unbroken streak of female winners since the Prize began in 2008.  All seven artists are aged 40 or under.

The seven shortlisted works were:
Open Lid  by Georgina Amos,  White Burka  by Howard Dyke ,Everything in its Right Place  by Sarah R Key, Anon Series (4)  by Nadine Mahoney, Bad Government (After Lorenzetti)  by Henrietta Simson,  Knife  by Laura Smith

The Prizes
"In essence they are career launchers and they give the finance to produce a large body of work."

Paul Cummings, 2010 Finalist for The Threadneedle Prize Three selectors have decided the winner of the £25,000 Threadneedle Prize from a shortlist of seven works submitted through the open submission. Each of the six runners up received £1,000. The £10,000 Visitors' Choice Prize was awarded by the general public and all 2011 exhibiting Threadneedle Prize artists were eligible to win. Voting for the Visitors' Choice Prize ended at 12pm on Monday, 3 October 2011.

The Threadneedle Prize: £25,000

The Visitors’ Choice: £10,000

Finalists (6 awarded): each £1,000

In addition to the prizes outlined above, the Threadneedle Prize provides artists: The opportunity to display work in an open submission to respected artists and curators . A three-week exhibition of selected artist works at Mall Galleries in central London.Online exhibition of selected artist works on the Threadneedle Prize website. Invites to events and opportunities to speak about your work with potential collectorMedia coverage of the Prize and occasional press photos.

HENRIETTA SIMSON  Winner

Bad Government (After Lorenzetti)

My "work not only explores the pre-perspectival spatial construction of the frescoes, but also the relationship between art and politics, questioning contemporary art's ability to challenge political systems."

Henrietta Simson selects early Renaissance depictions of space; landscapes that provided the setting for a scene or story. She changes the format and scale, and removes all narrative elements, freeing the spaces from their historical context and translating them into a contemporary framework.

This painting is taken from Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s frescoes in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, an allegorical scene (with its partner painting in this show) describing The Effects of Good and Bad Government painted between 1337-40.

Simson, who was the only artist in the exhibition to have three works exhibited, won the award for her painting Bad Government (After Lorenzetti). She accepted the award presented by Threadneedle Executive Chairman, Simon Davies.

Henrietta Simson was born in 1971 in Crawley. She lives and works in London and studied MA Painting at Slade School of Fine Art, UCL and currently studying there for a practice-related PhD.