Laura Gascoigne

Multiple choice | 24 November 2007

Lynn Painter-Stainers PrizePainters’ Hall, until 1 December

Lynn Painter-Stainers PrizePainters’ Hall, until 1 December

Art competitions suffer from a basic problem: how to apply a first-past-the-post system designed for racing to art. In some cases, contestants don’t even qualify for the same event — this year’s Turner Prize, typically, pits film and photography against installation. To avoid this sort of stupidity, the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize — now holding its third exhibition at Painters’ Hall — confines itself to ‘creative representational painting’ displaying ‘the skill of draughtsmanship’. But even this allows for invidious differences of subject, medium and approach. How is it judged? As one of this year’s selectors I happen to know, and without doing a Lynn Barber and completely blowing the gaff, I think it’s fair to explain.

Unlike the Byzantine machinations behind the Turner exposed by Barber in the press last year, the Painter-Stainers’ selection process is open and transparent. The judging panel is solely responsible for the entire selection from a national open submission. This year’s panel included a fair spread of judges: three painters — Ken Howard RA, Daphne Todd OBE and James Lloyd, a past BP Portrait Award winner — the gallery owner Francis Kyle, the curator and art historian Andrew Wilton, and myself on behalf of The Spectator, the prize’s media sponsor. On a September morning, an hour late because of a Tube strike, we muster in the poky basement of the Mall Galleries for a day of judgment in which we must select some 70 paintings from a record submission of over 800. We sit behind a barricade of tables while handlers carry a train of paintings past. A show of three selectors’ hands means they are retained for further weeding out in the afternoon; conferring is kept to a minimum, as practised organisers Parker Harris whip us on.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in