TURNING HEADS

Achieving visibility: Veronica Ryan

Sculptor Veronica Ryan, who studied at Bath Academy of Art, has recently been awarded Britain’s prestigious art award, the Turner Prize 2022. Here we find out more about her history, her connections to Bath and her artistic journey

Bath Academy of Art-trained sculptor Veronica Ryan OBE has been named as the 2022 winner of the Turner Prize. Arguably the most prestigious art accolade in the UK, the Turner Prize is awarded in recognition of an artist’s outstanding exhibition, or presentation, of their recent developments in British art.

Having studied for a BA in Fine Art at the Corsham Court campusbased Bath Academy of Art (now Bath Spa University’s Bath School of Art, Film and Media, at Locksbrook campus) from 1975–1978, Ryan then studied at The Slade School of Fine Art and later The School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

In her acceptance speech, Ryan thanked people “who’ve looked out for me when I wasn’t visible and I was making work from rubbish”, adding: “But actually some of the rubbish [works] are some of the most important works, I think.” Over the years, Ryan has spoken at great length about her love for repurposing old and outgrown materials, skills that her mother passed down to her as a child. She went on to establish an internationally revered exhibition profile, winning numerous awards across the globe.

Ryan, who last year created the UK’s first permanent public artwork in honour of the Windrush generation, was born in 1956 in Montserrat and moved to London with her parents as an infant. At 66 years of age she is the oldest recipient of the Turner Prize to date, showing that age is no limit for incredible talent.

High praise for Ryan came from the Turner Prize judging panel for “the personal and poetic way she extends the language of sculpture” and the “noticeable shift in her use of space, colour and scale both in gallery and civic spaces.”

Ryan’s tribute to the Windrush generation of people who arrived in the UK from the Caribbean between the late 1940s and 1970s was unveiled in the London borough of Hackney. It was this sculptural installation that led to her nomination for the Turner Prize. Her oversized marble and bronze sculptures representing Caribbean fruit and vegetables such as breadfruit, soursop and custard apple captured the imaginations of many.

Paying homage to her roots, Ryan often uses the fruits, seeds, and even volcanic ash from her home island. Another of her exhibitions, Along a Spectrum, included cocoa pods, avocado stones, orange peel and crocheted fishing net bags. This was displayed at Spike Island in Bristol in 2021 and also contributed to her nomination. Through this work, she examined environmental and sociopolitical concerns, personal narratives, history and displacement, and the wider psychological implications of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Veronica Ryan © Brian Roberts Images

Ryan’s sculptures are poetic and quietly provocative; her artwork stands out from all of the noise and brashness that is so often celebrated in the contemporary art world

Turner Prize 2022: Veronica Ryan Installation View at Tate Liverpool 2022 Photo: © Tate (Matt Greenwood)

Veronica Ryan, Along a Spectrum detail, (2021), Spike Island, Bristol. Photograph by Max McClure, courtesy Spike Island, Bristol, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, and Alison Jacques, London

Ryan’s inimitable creativity was evident when she displayed her unique works in a special Bath Spa alumni exhibition in February 2020, as part of the launch of the University’s new Locksbrook campus art facilities.

Dan Allen, Head of Bath Spa University’s Bath School of Art, Film and Media, said: “We are absolutely delighted that Veronica Ryan has been awarded the Turner Prize 2022. Ryan’s sculptures are poetic and quietly provocative; her artwork stands out from all of the noise and brashness that is so often celebrated in the contemporary art world. Ryan is a champion for all artists who wrestle with complex subject matter, but do so in a discursive and contemplative way. As an alumni of Bath School of Art, Film & Media (formally Bath Academy of Art), Ryan is also a beacon for our talented artists, as they embark on professional careers with a mission to make positive change in the world through art.”

Ryan received a cheque of £25,000 and a trophy from Frankie Goes To Hollywood frontman Holly Johnson at Liverpool’s St George’s Hall. Upon hearing her name announced as the winner, she exclaimed, “Power! Visibility!” and “better late than never.”

The Turner Prize aims to promote public debate around new developments in contemporary British art. Named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, who is regarded as Britain’s greatest and most prolific painters, the prize has become one of the best-known prizes for visual arts in the world. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible for the Turner Prize. The restriction, however, was removed for the 2017 award. As a result, Ryan, 66, has become the oldest winner in the award’s 38-year history.

The exhibition of Veronica Ryan’s Turner Prize-winning work, and that of the three other shortlisted artists, is at Tate Liverpool until 19 March. n

tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-liverpool/turner-prize-2022

There are no rules in kitchen diners

DUNCAN CAMPBELL Antique silver specialist

Anything can go

Even the most casual viewer of TV property shows will be aware of how many dining room walls have been knocked out over the last generation to create kitchen diners. This 21st century room makes endless good sense for modern family life, if only by keeping everyone together.

The traditional dining room suite, long runs of matching chairs and grand pedestal tables, is now a pretty hard sell in the antique trade. Formality and symmetry can appear decidedly odd next to the kitchen units. The whole point of a kitchen diner is that it is versatile and can as comfortably accommodate beans on toast for two as Christmas lunch for 14, even if that involves appropriating saw horses and planks from the shed.

A farmhouse style table seems to be the preferred choice these days, with 4 dependable legs and an easy to wipe oblong top. While sets of 8 & 12 chairs have lately been rather slow moving, pairs and even singles, once very hard to sell, are now in high demand. There really are no rules about how your family room ought to look.

Personally, I have never seen the point in matching sets of anything on grounds that when you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. I do understand that not everyone sees things my way. I have been scolded in the past for the very suggestion that a customer might like a ‘harlequin set’, whether this prejudice is driven by tradition, aesthetics or snobbery is hard to decide.

An old and creative customer of mine has just had a set of 8 gorgeous, Georgian dining chairs reupholstered so that each one has a different seat cover, all in vibrant and various colours. The set looks terrific and brings masses of colour and interest into what might otherwise be a much more dull, brown, wooden setting - just the thing for a modern diner. n beaunashbath.com; 01225 334234

Anyone for Venice?

Many of us can recall the boom in the market for Victorian watercolours during the 1980s. It coincided with a strengthening economy and the almost unexpected realisation that such pictures were skilfully executed, pleasurable to collect, reasonably abundant at almost every level of expenditure, readily understood and were complemented by easy nostalgic themes. I recall an intensely brisk spell in 1988-1989 when it was possible to follow such watercolours as though they were booming stocks: a picture that might have made £500 in 1988 could be sold the following year for £1500 or more. You may already be anticipating that the inevitable crash was sure to come: the market tightened up in the early 1990s with greater selectivity, diminished supply and less rewarding dividends. It trundled along without much fanfare until about 2008-2009 when the credit crunch reconfigured many collectors’ tastes, ambitions and finances. A new generation of buyers came to the fore and they did not warm to the styles that their parents had so embraced. Sadly, we have since seen some formerly celebrated artists’ works sell for just 10-15% of their peak a third of a century ago.

That brisk resumé should not be applied right across the board, of course, but fashion is now a much more critical determinant of value than quality, age, subject matter or past performances. Some artists’ prices may never return to the glories of the past but a notable exception should be made for the work of Albert Goodwin (1845-1932). A child prodigy on a par with Edwin Landseer (who showed a picture at The Royal Academy aged 13) or John Everett Millais (who showed at 17), Goodwin exhibited Under the Hedge aged just 15. That title alone indicates an obsession with ‘truth to nature’ that had motivated the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: direct observation, a focus on colour, keen attention to meticulous draughtsmanship and a reverent admiration for a subject on its own terms. Rather to my surprise, Goodwin observed ruefully in 1909 that he had `suffered all [his] life from having started under Pre-Raphaelite superlatives in colour. They emphasised the need of scenery and painting and rejoicing in colour.` Nonetheless, that education had served him well for it had drawn him towards John Ruskin in the 1860s. Ruskin, a patriarchal critic with a stern approval of his own judgment (a judgment sound enough to be wholly justified), was an artist of exceptional skill who had praised J M W Turner since he (Ruskin) had been a lad of just 16 and Ruskin had even worked at the master’s elbow. Goodwin accompanied Ruskin on an Italian tour in 1872 and so Albert learnt from a man who had learnt from, arguably, Britain’s finest exponent of watercolour.

Goodwin’s innate talent and his excellent instruction have rewarded him with a status of high renown amongst collectors. It is heartening to observe that distinctive brilliance is still sought for its own sake. With a skill that bordered on artistic alchemy, Goodwin invested his compositions with an ethereal glow, gauzy mist, tenebrous moonlight or numinous shadows. He showed a command of the medium that was so subtly effected that his pictures almost defy technical analysis. After applying the watercolour, he picked out details in ink or pencil afterwards (a technique as quirkily unconventional as putting on your socks after your shoes but Turner had also made it work well). True to Pre-Raphaelite principles to the last, Goodwin never lost his precision of technique, he never faltered with his colour sense and he never squandered the luxury of his viewpoints by producing a quotidian scene. In most of Goodwin’s pictures, one feels immersed in the glory of the place, awed by the grandeur of the heavens, overwhelmed by the ineffable splendours of nature or simply enchanted by a view of a city that one may never have the good fortune to visit oneself. An observer may even be tempted to think that Goodwin could not have had such luck to be outdoors with brushes and paper when such evanescent effects were arrayed before him. Yet it is impossible to imagine his not being there for his subjects, invariably semi-magical, retain nonetheless an insistent quality of truthfulness. A dozen examples from the Estate of Lord and Lady Peyton of Yeovil offered in our October auction, all found buyers. Subjects as varied as Abingdon, Milan, Cairo and Niagara Falls were bought for up to nearly £6000. But it was a magisterial view of Venice from 1892, exhibited at London Guildhall in 1896, that enchanted collectors the most. The bright, clear, summery light of a perfect Venetian day, the happy family group on the foreground terrace and the immediate sense of a scene described with perfectly nuanced watercolour washes lifted this gem to £19000 – the highest price paid at auction for any Goodwin watercolour in over a decade. Just for a moment, it felt like 1988 again.

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