Media executive, philanthropist and Tate trustee Elisabeth Murdoch has launched a £100,000 annual award for a mid-career female artist who is based in the UK. Unlike the Tate’s Turner Prize, artists over 50 years old are eligible; indeed, they could be the strongest contenders. The winner, who is due to be announced in the autumn, will get a solo show in a regional art gallery. Six unnamed institutions are on the shortlist of possible venues.
Called the Freelands Artist Award, after Murdoch’s London-based arts education foundation, the selection panel includes the artist Phyllida Barlow, who only came to international prominence after a distinguished career teaching at the Slade in London. Other members of the selection panel include Jenni Lomax, the director of Camden Arts Centre, the curator Teresa Gleadowe and Martin Clark, the director of Bergen Kunsthalle in Norway.
Last year, the Freelands Foundation commissioned the curator and academic Charlotte Bonham-Carter to research how fairly female artists are represented in leading public and commercial galleries. Her report shows that women got fewer solo shows in both and the more prestigious the public institution, the fewer opportunities. For example, during 2014-15, 42% of the solo shows in 28 public galleries in London were of female artists' work, dropping to 25% in its major institutions, Bonham-Carter discovered. Despite the many advances made by women in the art world over the years, they are still under-represented in all of the indicators used to measure career achievement, she concluded. "The situation is worse in London, which is troubling," she says. She does not think that institutions are biased against female artists, rather women lack the "support structure" to achieve a "pinnacle achievement", such as a mid-career solo show.
“Women artists in mid-career are still woefully under-represented in the art world and this award aims to raise their profile,” says Murdoch in a statement, adding that she hoped that it would also help regional galleries “fulfil their potential”.
