Art Prize Judges 22

The Sir John Hurt Art Prize

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 & Glass 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..