Art Prizes
Despite the difficulties that we all faced in 2020 and 2021, we are delighted to have been able to continue the Holt Festival Art Prizes throughout, with a few changes of course.
We are very grateful to Charlotte Fraser who is kindly underwriting the £1,000 prize for The Charlotte Fraser Ceramics Prize which we are introducing this year.
The prizes on offer are as follows:
The Sir John Hurt Prize
Winner receives £2,000
The Sworders Prize for Emerging Artists (aged 19-23)
The winner receives £750 and is offered a commission free exhibition at The Gallery, Holt. Entries are automatically entered (free) for the Sir John Hurt Art Prize
The Sworders Prize for Young Artists (aged 16-18)
Entries are automatically entered (free) for the Sir John Hurt Art Prize
The Charlotte Fraser Ceramics Prize
Winner receives £1,000
Closing Date for Entries and Shortlist Notifications
All entries are to be submitted online, from which a shortlist for each prize will be selected. The selected works are then included in the Shortlist Exhibition from which the judges choose the winners.
The closing date for entries is midnight on Sunday 19th June 2022
The shortlist for all the prizes will be announced by midnight on Sunday 26th June. Details for the delivery of shortlisted works to the exhibition will be sent at this stage.
Holt Festival will charge 28.2% (23.5%+VAT) commission for works sold in the Shortlist Exhibition.
Artwork – Details
Sir John Hurt & Sworders Art Prizes
All artworks must be wall hanging and measure no more than 1.25 metres, including the frame (if any), in height or width and must be no greater than 40cms deep. Artists may use any medium they wish and depict any subject matter. Works selected for the Shortlist Exhibition do not have to be framed if the artist believes their work is better displayed unframed. However it is usually advantageous to sympathetically frame work, especially when offering them for sale.
Charlotte Fraser Ceramics Prize Entries may be ceramic or glass and should not measure more than 60cm in any direction
The Shortlist Exhibitions 2022
Adrian Hill Fine Art has very kindly offered to host the Sir John Hurt & Sworders Art Prize exhibitions in their gallery in Lees Yard in Holt town centre. It will open to the public on Saturday 23rd July and runs until Saturday 30th July (10am - 4pm). The Shortlist Exhibition for the Charlotte Fraser Ceramics Prize will be held at St Andrew’s Church (adjacent to the festival exhibition Craxton-Picasso, which includes Picasso Ceramics from The Attenborough Collection). It will open to the public on Saturday 23rd July (closed Sunday 24th 1-30-3pm for a wedding) and runs until Sunday 31st (10am – 4pm).
It is still possible, in the event of a Covid peak, that we will need to operate a timed entry system. If this is the case bookings can be arranged through this website nearer the time.
The Announcement of the Winners – Sunday 24th July
Entrants will be sent an invitation to the Private View and Winners Announcement Event. Which is at 6pm on Sunday 24th July at Adrian Hill Fine Art in Lees Yard in Holt. The announcement of the winners will be live on Youtube from St Andrew’s Church at 7-7.15pm.
Please click here to download the entry form and use the PayPal buttons below to select your entry fee. Artists may enter up to three works in each prize.
Judges 2022
The Sir John Hurt Art Prizes
Ian Collins
Ian is an art writer, critic and curator, working with the British Museum, Fitzwilliam, Yale Center for British Art, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts and elsewhere. He has written a trilogy of books of East Anglian artists and several significant monographs and biographies. The most recent of which is the biography of John Craxton A Life of Gifts. Craxton is not only the subject of this years Holt Festival exhibition Craxton-Picasso and the forthcoming film A Life of Gifts (Directed by Tony Britten and produced by Anwen Hurt), but Ian is curating a touring show opening at The Benaki Museum in Athens in April John Craxton A Greek Soul which will arrive back in the UK, via Crete and Turkey, in 2024.
Professor Simon Ofield-Kerr
Simon studied Fine Art at Exeter College of Art & Design and has an MA in the Social History of Art and a PhD from the University of Leeds. Simon was recently appointed as Vice-Chancellor of Norwich Univesity of the Arts (NUA), having previously held key roles at the University for the Creative Arts (Surrey & Kent) and University of the Arts London (UAL), as well as both Middlesex University and Kingston where he was Executive Dean of the Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture.
Sworders Art Prizes
Amy Scanlon
After gaining her degree in History of Art, Amy worked in for a West End Gallery in London and joining Sworders Fine Art in 2009. She is Head of Modern & Contemporary Art and sells works by the leading British and European artists from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of pounds; among them Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, L S Lowry, David Hockney, Sir Peter Blake, Dame Elizabeth Frink to name but a few.
Adrian Hill - Gallerist
Adrian’s grandparents opened the first art gallery and artists' supplies shop in Holt, which is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year, it was subsequently run by his parents. Adrian has recently reshaped and relaunched The Gallery having in 2013 opened his own gallery Adrian Hill Fine Art next door. In the autumn of 2020 he opened a further gallery in the market town of Stamford. The galleries show contemporary work by a range of British artists as well as showcasing a selection of original works by among others Hockney, Lowry and East Anglian favourite Edward Seago. Adrian Hill Fine Art generously gives the winner of the Sworders Art Prize for 19-23 year-olds a commission free exhibition, as well as hosting the shortlist exhibition of The Holt Festival Art Prizes 2022.
Charlotte Fraser Ceramics Prize
Charlotte Fraser
Charlotte has been involved for a number of years with both the Royal College of Art and Royal College of Music awarding scholarships and bursaries to post graduate students. After Brighton Art School and picking up pins in a couture house, Charlotte started work designing dresses before moving on to knitwear in the seventies. The eighties brought a radical change of direction when she and her husband bought a vinyard in southwest France. Charlotte has also been awarding scholarships and bursaries at the RCA Ceramics & Glass Department for the last twenty years. Many of the recipients have gone on to achieve great sucess in their careers. These include Zemer Peled, Katherine Morling, James Lethbridge, Amy Lax, Katie Spragg, Celia Dowson, Luke Fuller & Bryony Applegate.
Dr Caroline Fisher
Caroline originally trained as a doctor in Cambridge and worked in London for several years before changing career and studying Fine Art and then Museum Studies at the University of East Anglia. She worked at the Wellcome Foundation and British Museum and until recently was curator of East Gallery at Norwich University of the Arts, where she is currently subject specialist for the MA in curation. Away from NUA she runs Caroline Fisher Projects which encourages artists working in clay and other media to realise innovative work that pushes the boundaries of these disciplines. This includes exhibitions and projects, engaging with community groups and aiming to broaden access to ceramic art.
Paul Greenhalgh
Paul is a historian, writer, museologist and curator of art and design. He is the inaugural Director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation and former Director of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich. In the past he taught at the Royal College of Art and was deputy keeper of ceramics and glass at the V&A. His magnum opus Ceramic, Art & Civilisation was published last year to great acclaim. He tells the story of ceramics as a story of human civilisation, from the Ancient Greeks to the present day. As a core craft technology, pottery has underpinned domesticity, business, religion, recreation, architecture and art for millennia. Indeed, the history of ceramics parallels the development of human society. Spectator Review: The use of ‘Ceramic’ rather than ‘Ceramics’ in the title of this book indicates Paul Greenhalgh’s passionate belief that ‘ceramic is a thing in itself: a many-headed but nevertheless singular entity, with an ongoing intellectual discourse’ which he christens ‘the ceramic continuum’. He believes that this has been ‘actively denied its place as an artistic practice’ and that ‘its exclusion from the canon of art history is squarely to do with money, class and race’. This book is a prodigious attempt to right that wrong...
Terms & Conditions of Entry
Please read these carefully and keep a copy for your records.
1. Entrants acknowledge they have read and accept these terms by submitting an entry form.
2. All work submitted must be available for inclusion in the Holt Festival Art Prizes Shortlist Exhibition, Saturday 23rd July – Saturday 30th July 2022 (the Charlotte Fraser Ceramics Exhibition will continue until Sunday 31st July).
3. All artworks must be wall hanging and measure no more than 1.25 metres, including the frame (if any), in height or width and must be no greater than 40cms deep. Submitted images should be sent as jpgs no larger than 3mb. The shortlist selection will be made viewing the images on large screens.
4. When the shortlist is announced the successful artists will receive instructions about delivery to Holt on the 16th, 18th & 19th July. Artists are responsible for wrapping and arranging transport. Collection of unsold shortlisted works after the Art exhibition will be from Adrian Hill Fine Art, Holt. Collection of shortlisted works from the ceramics exhibition will be from The Meeting Room at St Andrew’s church.
5. Artists may opt to sell their work. The festival will charge 28.2% (23.5%+VAT) commission on all sales.
6. The judge's decisions are final and binding; no correspondence can be entered into.
7. Once an entry form has been submitted, no refunds of entry fees, part or whole, will be given.
Copyright - Holt Festival adhere to standard copyright practice.
Data Protection
The personal details on your submitted entry form are for the exclusive use of Holt Festival, The Sir John Hurt, Charlotte Fraser & Sworders Art Prizes and Art & Antiques Appraisals (who manage the prizes) in relation to art events and will not be passed on to third parties for any reason.
Your email address will be added to our mailing database and you will be given the option to unsubscribe at any time.