A total of £37,000 has been awarded in prizes at the 16th National Open Art Competition in Chichester. Cornwall-based painter Joy Wolfenden won the £10,000 Towry Award for Best in Show for her oil painting The Lacemaker. City & Guilds of London Art School graduate Holly Frean was awarded the NOAC Award of £2,000 for her painting Woman and Cat, after Gwen John’s Young Woman Holding a Black Cat of 1920.
19 further prizes were awarded, including the University of Chichester Award presented to Josh Hollingshead, and three Towry Photographic Awards, won by Jane Morgan, Eiko Soga and John Wolstenholme. Grayson Perry will present the awards at a ceremony at the Prince’s Drawing School later this month.
A record 2,100 works were submitted to the competition, which was judged by curator and cultural historian Gus Casely-Hayford; Financial Times photography critic Francis Hodgson; artist and curator Cedar Lewisohn; artist and Head of Undergraduate Painting at the Slade, Andrew Stahl; and artist and lecturer Lisa Wright.
An exhibition of works by the 87 shortlisted artists is currently on display at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester. It will then tour to the Prince’s Drawing School, London, from 24 October. Prizewinning works will be shown at a third exhibition at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, in November.
www.thenationalopenartcompetition.com
