The Discerning Eye - exhibition archive

On behalf of the Directors and Trustees I am delighted to welcome you to the tenth annual Discerning Eye exhibition. Our November show in the Mall Galleries is the centrepiece, and certainly the best known part, of the work done by the Charity. But Discerning Eye is not just an art exhibition.

During the past twelve months, we have continued to develop in a number of ways. Last year we announced the formation of an Educational Advisory Board, and the advice of its distinguished members has already begun to influence the direction of our work. We have introduced regional prizes to give further encouragement for artists working outside the London area to submit their work. A Discerning Eye Bursary has been established at the Frink School of Sculpture, to stimulate sculptors to submit work to our annual exhibition.

We are continuing to work closely with Arts & Business. This year Arts & Business is providing financial support for ING Barings Discerning Eye, Art in the Community. This is an outreach project designed to enable a wider range of art groups to benefit from Discerning Eye.

We are planning an exciting series of events that will be held at the London Wall offices of ING Barings throughout the coming months.

We coordinated a programme of Discerning Eye masterclasses, offering free tuition from established professional artists at the 2000 exhibition, to people who want to learn to paint, or learn to paint better. We will shortly be seeing the results from the time artist Johnny Jonas spent as "painter in residence" in the dealing room at ING Barings. Discerning Eye was able to sponsor the residency through the financial support of Arts & Business.

As a result of a number of suggestions we have received, we have inaugurated membership schemes for artists and for people who want to help Discerning Eye to continue to develop.

Purchasers of work from the annual exhibition will be made "Friends of Discerning Eye" and will be entitled to additional benefits. The benefits include admission to a private view - with a free catalogue and a glass of wine and copies of a new Discerning Eye newsletter to be launched in December. The Friends' private view this year will be held from 12 noon until 2 pm on Friday 16 November during which the launch of the ING Barings Art in the Community project will be announced. Those who have not bought work from one of our exhibitions can become a Friend of Discerning Eye, and enjoy all of the benefits, for an annual subscription of £10.

The annual Discerning Eye debate will take place on 15 November at 12.45 pm at the Mall Galleries. The topic for debate this year will be "The Value of Art Prizes", and the artists and critics leading the debate will no doubt have very different views on the subject. Admission to the debate is free and open to all. If previous Discerning Eye debates are any guide, it will be an interesting and informative hour or so.

Like all charities. Discerning Eye relies heavily on the support of a number of people and organisations. I have already mentioned the funding provided by Arts & Business for our outreach project.

The exhibition itself could not take place without the substantial help given by ING Barings. ING is a company that has a long standing interest in the arts, and encourages art and artists in many ways. We are grateful for their continued interest as well as their financial support.

The quality of the work you will see in this years exhibition demonstrates the widespread talent in the country. Choosing the work to be shown from the impressive submission is the task which has been completed by our six selectors. We offer sincere thanks to all the artists who submitted work and to our selectors for their interest and commitment.

We also enjoy the support of those people and organisations that provide the prizes, and whose names are listed elsewhere in this catalogue. Our thanks also go to GCI Financial, a company that has given generous financial support for the exhibition, and once again funded one of the major prizes.

The amount of work that I have been able to report in this introduction would not be possible without the unstinting commitment of my colleagues on the board of Discerning Eye.

Our board has been strengthened this year by the appointment of Malcolm Wright as Finance Director. The members of our Educational Advisory Board have given freely of their time and expertise. With their help, and with the hard work of all our supporters too numerous to mention individually, I am confident that Discerning Eye will continue to develop.

John Caine MBE Chairman

Over 1,500 submissions of superb quality were received from artists all over the UK. £75,000 of art was sold over the course of the exhibition. Over half the exhibition was formed of open submission artists, who proceeded to outsell the invited artists. The Discerning Eye debate provoked an interesting discussion on the monetary and personal value of prizes to artists along with the ethics of placing artists in a hierarchy.

organisation

directors
John Caine MBE (Chairman)
Tony Humphreys (Chief Executive)
Gillian Thalassinos
Malcolm Wright (Finance Director)

educational advisory board
Sally Bulgin
Tom Coates
David Gluck
Justin Mortimer

exhibition

main sponsor
ING BARINGS Charterhouse Securities
an award winner under the Pairing Scheme
(National Heritage Arts Sponsorship Scheme)

exhibition organisers
Parker Harris Partnership

The Discerning Eye Debate 2001
"The Value of Art Prizes"
Thursday 15 November 2001 - 12.45pm

12Foreword 3Prizes & sponsor 4Ken Howard RA 5James Lloyd 6Robert Hiscox 7Quentin Willson 8Sir Roy Strong 9Mary Rose Beaumont >Next page