The Sequested Prize
A PRIZE FOR SELF-PORTRAITURE
Pablo Picasso, Self Portrait at ninety, July 1972
source Openculture.com
Art has always sustained humanity in its darkest hours.
To sequester means to isolate. To put away, to set aside for a particular purpose. The Sequested Prize, a new short-hand for sequestered, is using an unprecendented word for unprecedented times. The Sequested Prize is recognising the particular purpose of the artist at this time: to make work.
The Sequested Prize is instigated by an artist
Many artists’ financial existence is very fragile, even at mid-career. Matisse said that people do value and enjoy art, like they enjoy butter, cream and milk, but don’t want to know about the dung and flies surrounding the reality of the cow.
This prize is instigated by an artist who knows this well, often several jobs are needed to create a small space in which to shelter the slight, flickering flame of an art career. The freelance/contractor/zero-hours/casual jobs used to sustain artists have evaporated in this time of sequestration.
The Sequested prize is designed to offer light and hope in these dark times and the chance to be in a show where your portrait will stand out, a space where your work will be taken seriously, specifically, through a self-portrait created now, when we are sequested at home remembering this significant moment in our history. Looking at yourself, using you as primary subject matter is as a way of connecting with others in these constrained and strange times.
THE CALL TO THE ARTIST
What you can enter
A self -portrait made now.
You have a chance to regard closely what is to hand. You.
A self-portrait is a powerful tool. It can describe a physical observation of the body and the metaphysical longing of the soul. The power of each are different. The tension in the work we are seeking, is when these two, not only converse but converge. When they conspire together, they move into the area of the profound. How to do it right here, right now? It is done by what is hidden in, and revealed by, the artist’s, gesture, implied and actually, immanent in, and formed from, the connection of eye to hand, to paper, to canvas, to surface.
Only you can describe you now.
Look hard at yourself.
Start where you are.
Use what you have.
OUR JUDGES
Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of Cornelis van der Geest, 1620
W K Lyhne
Co-Founder of The Sequested Prize
W.K.Lyhne is an artist, curator and researcher. She has wide ranging practice, mainly focused on painting and drawing but also including ceramics, sculpture and film. She is represented by Lungley Gallery.
Lyhne is currently doing a practiced-based PhD. with supervisors from Chelsea College of Arts and Design
and
Oxford University and Sotheby's Institute.
Fru Tholstrup
Co-Founder of The Sequested Prize
Fru Tholstrup is a London-based art consultant with a deep knowledge of the contemporary global fine art market, advising collectors and international businesses on building museum-quality art collections. She spent 10 years as a Director of the London and Berlin based Haunch of Venison gallery and is known for her role launching Sotheby’s flagship London Art Gallery, S|2 in 2013 and working closely with the S|2 Brand in New York and Hong Kong. Recent independent projects have included the critically acclaimed group show ‘21st Century Women’ at Unit London and the curation of the art collection for the Hôtel de Crillon in Paris.
Kate Bryan
Kate Bryan is an arts broadcaster and curator. Kate is the global head of collections for Soho House and Co. She has written and presented arts programmes for Sky Arts, BBC2, BBC4 and Sky Arts Italia.
She is a Judge on the long running shows Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year and Landscape Artist of the Year. She is a mentor for young women in the arts and in 2019 published her first book, The Art of Love.
Matt Carey-Williams
Matt Carey-Williams is Senior Director and the Worldwide Head of Sales for Victoria Miro Gallery. With nearly 25 years experience in the art world, Matt has operated across European, American and Asian markets for both auction houses and blue-chip art galleries. He is a published writer and continues to lecture on contemporary art and the art market.
Nicholas Cullinan
Nicholas Cullinan took up his position as the Director of the National Portrait Gallery in spring 2015, following roles at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and Tate Modern. Nicholas received his BA, MA and PhD in art history from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and in 2006–7 he held the Hilla Rebay International Fellowship at the Guggenheim museums in Bilbao, New York and Venice.
David Dawson
David Dawson is a painter and photographer who worked with Lucian Freud from 1990 up until his death. David won the Ruth Brochard self portrait prize 2019.
Fergus Duff
Fergus Duff is Director of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art department. Prior to this Fergus worked in Sotheby’s Private Client Group where he was responsible for developing client relationships and advising international collectors on their acquisitions. He was instrumental in Sotheby’s first outdoor selling exhibition in Asia, with Sotheby’s Presents Zadok Ben-David at the Singapore Botanic Gardens and editions of Beyond Limits at Chatsworth House.
Maryam Eisler
Maryam Eisler is a London- based photographer and editor . She holds a BA in Political Science from Wellesley College and an MBA from Columbia University.
Eisler co-chaired Tate’s MENAAC Acquisitions Committee for ten years and is a trustee of the Whitechapel Gallery, and sits on the advisory board of Photo London, She is a contributing Editor to LUXMagazine. She has additionally contributed both photographically and editorially to Harpers Bazaar Art, Harpers Bazaar Interiors, Vogue Arabia and Vanity Fair.
She has held Executive Editorial roles for several Thames and Hudson publications and her book,Voices: East London which she is both author and photographer was published in November 2017.
Eisler's photographic work is represented by London-based gallery, Tristan Hoare and NY-based gallery Harper's Books .
Melanie Gerlis
Melanie Gerlis became the art market columnist for the Financial Times in September 2016. She was previously Art Market Editor at The Art Newspaper (2007-2016), before which she worked in financial communications at Finsbury in London, advising investment banks, hedge funds and other financial services clients.
(1996-2005). She is a trustee of The Art Academy and Art360 and a member of the governing body for Sotheby’s Institute of Art. She has a BA from Cambridge University and an MA from Sotheby’s Institute of Art. Her book, ‘Art as an Investment?’, was published in 2014
Simon Martin
Simon Martin is Director of Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, UK. He has curated many exhibitions and written widely on Modern British and contemporary art. A Trustee of the Charleston Trust, he also serves on the Fabric Advisory Committee of Chichester Cathedral; the Courtauld Association Committee; and the Advisory Board of Apollo Magazine. He is an alumnus of the the Courtauld Institute of Art and University of Warwick.
Johnathan Messum
Johnathan Messum is the founder of Messums Wiltshire, an innovative Art Centre that celebrates the creative endeavour offering a unique environment for both artists and collectors.Johnathan studied History of Art at Edinburgh University and then worked at Christie’s in London before joining the family business He set up Messums Wiltshire in 2016. In 2019 he opened Messums London in Cork Street.
Jane Neal
Jane Neal is an independent curator, art critic and advisor. An expert on the contemporary art scene in Eastern Europe, she has also been described by ARTINFO and The Financial Times as one of the most knowledgable independent curators working today in the field of figurative painting. She co-authored the best-selling art book: 'Art Cities of the Future: 21 Century Avant Gardes.
Carrie Scott
Carrie Scott, art historian, independent curator and consultant, has over 15 years' experience advising clients on collecting photography. She works side by side with visionaries including Nick Knight, John Pawson, Marina Shacola, Walter & Zoniel, and Darren Waterston on art projects that take shape outside the confines of the white cube. In 2018 Scott curated the largest independent photography show for the Store x, exhibiting 470 photographs and most remarkably featuring 320 images from John Pawson’s series Spectrum.
Justine Simons
Justine Simons OBE is Deputy Mayor for Culture and Creative Industries, London and Founder and Chair of the World Cities Culture Forum. Justine is pioneering ground breaking cultural policy; from Creative Enterprise Zones to the new London Borough of Culture Award, from the world’s first Cultural Infrastructure Plan to establishing the UK’s first Night Czar. Justine believes culture is central to London’s success as a global city and has the power to transform lives and places. She has shaped the capital’s cultural strategy for over 15 years, helping establish London as a top global creative capital. She is leading the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games legacy, East Bank - the most significant new cultural and education district to be established in the UK in 150 years. Justine established the Fourth Plinth as a global exemplar for public sculpture and chaired the commission that put the first statue of a woman on Parliament Square to mark the centenary of the first women getting the vote.
Carol Tulloch
Carol Tulloch, writer and curator, is Professor of Dress, Diaspora and Transnationalism at the University of the Arts London based at Chelsea College of Arts. She is also an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Her recent work includes ‘Style Activism: The Everyday Activist Wardrobe of the Black Panther Party and Rock Against Racism Movement' in Fashion and Politics (2019), co-editor of The Persistence of Taste: Art, Museums and Everyday Life After Bourdieu (2018), the exhibition Jessica Ogden: Still (2017), the monograph The Birth of Cool: Style Narratives of the African Diaspora (2016), the book and exhibition Syd Shelton: Rock Against Racism (2015).
Dylan Jones
Dylan Jones studied at Chelsea School Of Art and then St. Martin’s School of Art, and former editor at i-D, The Face, Arena, the Observer and the Sunday Times. He is the award-winning editor of GQ magazine, a position he has held since 1999, and has won the British Society of Magazine Editors “Editor of the Year” award a record eleven times.
Under his editorship the magazine has won over 50 awards.
He was the Chairman of the Prince’s Trust’s Fashion Rocks Monaco, is a board member of the Norman Mailer Writers Colony and a Trustee of the Hay Festival and is a Director of Conde Nast rand Menswear Chairman of the British Fashion Council.
In 2013 he was awarded an OBE and is Honorary Professor of Glasgow Caledonian University.
Samson Kambalu
Samson Kambalu is an artist and a writer working in a variety of media. He approaches art as an arena for critical thought and sovereign activities. He has been featured in major exhibitions worldwide, including the Dakar Biennale (2016) and the Liverpool Biennial (2016). He was included in All the World’s Futures, Venice Biennale 2015, curated by Okwui Enwezor. Kambalu studied at the University of Malawi (BA, Fine Art and Ethnomusicology), and Chelsea College of Art and Design (PhD, Fine Art). His research fellowships have included Yale and the Smithsonian. He is an associate professor of Fine Art at Ruskin School of Art and a fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford University.
Josh Lilley
Josh Lilley opened in Fitzrovia in May 2009.
More than 80 exhibitions have been presented, including multiple solo shows for Derek Fordjour, Nick Goss, Analia Saban, Kathleen Ryan and Peter Linde Busk. The gallery has recently taken on the neighbouring building, doubling its exhibition space.
Notable programming and collaboration for 2020 includes the European debut for Chicago-based painter Celeste Rapone, the official representation of British artist Ryan Mosley; currently featured in the seminal painting survey Radical Figures at the Whitechapel Gallery, Kathleen Ryan’s inclusion in the Liverpool Biennial, the fifth gallery exhibition in October for British painter Nick Goss, while the end of the year sees a groundbreaking exhibition of the work of Patrick Caulfield - 150 never seen before paintings, drawings, sketches, and prints - from the archive of his first wife and three sons. Josh Lilley will also be participating in leading art fairs, including Frieze New York, Frieze London, and Art Basel Miami Beach.
Ewan Venters
Ewan Venters is Hauser and Wirth's first global Chief Executive Officer. Venters leads the gallery’s Executive Board.
Before this he was was CEO of Fortnum & Mason, Ewan has led the famous Piccadilly destination to a succession of major achievements during his 8 years in post. Under his leadership, Fortnum’s has recorded record sales and profits, and have also expanded beyond their historic London home into new locations globally. Ewan has been passionate about the creation of innovative products and bringing Art to Fortnum & Mason, our latest exhibition showcasing Fortnum’s X Zhang Enli artwork was a great success.
Katy
Wickremesinghe
Katy Wickremesinghe is the Founder of KTW London, a strategic communications consultancy formed from a desire and mission to connect, educate and inspire with forms of art and culture: whilst representing major galleries, auction houses, global luxury brands and private individuals, KTW’s creative content platform, KTW Curates and Monday Muse, connects individuals to creative experiences.
She is a committed cultural advocate and philanthropist and serves as a V&A Young Patron; RA250 patron; member of Future Contemporaries with The Serpentine and on the Executive Committee for AWITA. She also holds a number of prominent advisory board roles including: The Line - a public arts initiative conceived by Megan Piper; The Colombo Biennale; Platform Presents - dedicated to nurturing new rising talent in theatre and film and previously The Clinton Foundation. She appears in the top 5 Luxury power players in the 2020 PR Week PowerBook, an annual recognition list in PR week of the most influential
communications
professionals in Britain.
Wickremesinghe founded KTW London in 2016, after a decade at Freuds. She is part Sri-Lankan and a passionate advocate of forging links between East and West on a wider cultural and business level.
Jonathan Yeo
Jonathan Yeo is one of the world's leading portraitists and has exhibited widely in both the UK and abroad. His sitters include such diverse figures as Sir David Attenborough, Malala Yousafzai, Damien Hirst, Nicole Kidman, Baroness Lawrence, Tony Blair and The Duke of Edinburgh. Known for both traditional and experimental portraiture, his work has been the subject of mid-career surveys at the Museum of National History in Denmark (2016), the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle (2014-15), the Lowry in Greater Manchester (2014) and the National Portrait Gallery in London (2013). Other collaborations include the Royal Academy of Arts in London (2018), the Bowes Museum in County Durham (2018), and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC (2016). In 2018 Yeo was also appointed as Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery in London, and named Artist of the Year by GQ Magazine.
Ruth Guilding
Ruth Guilding is an art and design historian, writer and curator, @bibleofbritishtaste
Tristan Hoare
Tristan Hoare begun his career at Christies and began curating independent exhibitions before setting up his gallery in London 2009. Based in Fitzrovia he is focused on emerging and established international artists with an emphasis on skill and storytelling.
Simon Ofield-Kerr
With a 35-year commitment to creative arts education, Professor Simon Ofield-Kerr studied Fine Art Photography at Exeter College of Art and Design, and then History of Art at the University of Leeds. He has a PhD and a range of publications focused on the relationships between Fine Art, visual cultures and the social / sexual pleasures, practices and identities of men in 1950s Britain, considering the work of Francis Bacon, Keith Vaughan and David Hockney.
He is Vice-Chancellor of Norwich University of the Arts.
Ben Pentreath
Ben Pentreath is one of the UK’s leading architectural and interior designers.
His London-based design studio has established a powerful reputation across a wide-ranging variety of disciplines.
Ben lives with his husband, Charlie McCormick, in London and in a Regency parsonage in West Dorset—and now also in a tiny cottage on the far west coast of Scotland.
Melanie Sykes
Melanie Sykes is a TV and radio presenter and Editor-in-Chief of the online women’s magazine FRANK.
She currently hosts ‘The Great pottery Throwdown’ and co-hosts a radio show with comedian Alan Carr on BBC Radio 2.
Käthe Kollwitz, Self-Portrait with Hand on the Forehead, 1910
