The selectors - Artists Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones and Jennifer McRae, Critics Charles Saumarez Smith and Drusilla Beyfus and Collectors Dame Stephanie Shirley and Davina McCall spent 2 days in September sifting through some 2,300 works submitted by artists from all over the UK. They selected just over 260 works - paintings, drawings, photographs and sculpture, from over 170 different artists.

These works will hang alongside works from the Selectors' invited artists (some of whom are mentioned below) to make a unique exhibition where an impressively widerangeof artists, both established and unknown, with an amazing array of styles and techniques, come together.

Sarah Armstrong-Jones, who has herself shown on numerous occasions in the ING Discerning Eye Exhibition, has invited distinguished figurative artist Leonard McComb R.A. and HRH The Prince of Wales, whilst Jennifer McRae who has exhibited extensively across the UK and who has been selected for many prestigious open exhibitions including the BP Portrait Award, has amongst her invited artists two sculptors - Glenys Barton and Patricia Volk ARBS. Television presenter and keen art collector Davina McCall is very glad to have taken a "step outside my comfort zone" to become one of this year's selectors; one of her invited artists is contemporary portrait painter Jonathan Yeo.

Renowned sculptor Peter Randall-Page, who was himself a selector in 2004 (and who has exhibited in past DE exhibitions) has been invited to show in Dame Stephanie Shirley's section of the Exhibition. Her charitable Shirley Foundation facilitates scientific research into the causes of autism and enabled the acquisition and funding of Prior's Court School near Newbury for children with autism.

Her interest in contemporary art and her belief in the therapeutic value of art has meant that the entire school is filled with the finest examples of British art, craft and design, a magnificent collection - some of it specially commissioned - on permanent loan from Dame Stephanie.

She clearly relished the job of selecting for the Discerning Eye - both from the open submissions and choosing her invited artists. She has almost 90 works which will be on display at the Mall Galleries in November.

 

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