The Judges

Who were the judges?

For the first A1 Open Summer Exhibition we invited an impressive group of individuals from the art world, regionally and beyond, to assess the work of the entrants.

Our team for 2008 were as follows:

Greville Worthington, Chairman
Greville is a collector and curator, Trustee of The Yorkshire Sculpture Park and The Henry Moore Foundation as well as serving on the Turner Prize Judging Panel in 2004. Nowadays, he focuses less on collecting artworks, taking an interest in collecting itself.

Emma Wesley, Portrait Painter
Emma is a young and talented portrait artist. She was elected a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 2007. Emma has exhibited widely. She has been selected for inclusion in the annual BP Portrait Award Show held at the National Portrait Gallery in London, on numerous occasions, including this year.

Simon Palmer, Watercolourist
Simon was born and has lived most of his life in Yorkshire. His enigmatic, captivating paintings often pay homage to this area of Northern England. In 2006, Simon won the The Winsor & Newton Turner Watercolour Award in the RA Summer Exhibition. He has been commissioned by the NationalTrust at Sissinghurst and Salt's Mill in Saltaire.

Sonia Lawson RA
Sonia is a painter and a teacher. The daughter of famous Dales painter, Fred Lawson, she has spent over twenty-fifi ve years as a guest Lecturer at the Royal Academy Schools in London. Sonia has judged the RA Summer Exhibition on several occasions. Her paintings are in private collections and galleries across the country and abroad.

Ronnie Duncan, Collector
Ronnie has been an avid collector of art for over 50 years and has amassed an outstanding collection of work by modern British artists such as David Hockney and regularly loans work to galleries around the country.

Godfrey Worsdale, Director, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (mima)
Godfrey studied Art History at the London Institute from 1985 – 90. He began his curatorial career in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum before moving to Southampton City Art Gallery as Curator in 1995. In 1998 he became Director of the gallery, where he worked until he recently moved to Middlesbrough to establish mima.

Dr Véronique Gerard Powell, Art Historian, Sorbonne
Veronique has taught at the Sorbonne since 1981, where she specialises in the Spanish artist, Goya. She has a collection of old master drawings and contemporary British paintings.

The Judging

How did they do the judging?

On arriving at Aske Hall at 9 o'clock on the 23rd June, the judges were asked to inspect as many of the pictures as they could, so as to determine the general standard of what had been submitted.
The team of seven judges were then divided into two groups of three, with the Chairman moving between the two groups, to keep a check on their progress. A group of sixteen porters, eight working with each group of judges, arranged the pictures in such a way so that when the judging began at 10 am, there would be no lag in the proceedings.
If an artist submitted one, two or three pieces, they were all placed on a set of easels so the judges could easily view them individually and as a group.
Godfrey Worsdale, one of the A1 judges commented... "Open shows like the A1 Open are a brilliant means for artists to get exposure for their work. Yes, they have to go through a selection process, but because all entries are assessed anonymously, they really are judged purely on originality and artist merit."
By 6 pm, almost 1,200 pictures had been examined. The judges then reviewed their short-listed works by category, in other words, all the oils, followed by the pastels etc. Then as a group of seven, they cast their votes for what they believed to be the best picture in each category.
Lastly, each judge was asked to select what they believed to be the five best pictures that they had seen during the entire day. These 35 pictures were then voted on to determine the Judges' Choice for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place overall winners.
"I'm certain that at the end of the day we have come up with a very good cross-section of work for this, the fi rst A1 Open Exhibition, from both professional and amateur artists," said Greville Worthington, as the shutters at Aske Hall were closed. "I'm only sorry that we couldn't have chosen twice as many pictures for the show."