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Organisation
Lillias Mitchell and her grand-niece, Lucie Campos Mitchell, in a woven dress made by Lillias. Photograph courtesy the Golden Fleece Award.
Visual Artists' News Sheet | March – April 2021
Jennifer Trouton, The Ties that Bind, 2013, oil on linen; image courtesy the artist and Golden Fleece Award.
THE ANNUAL GOLDEN Fleece Award is a prestigious independent prize
A Golden Opportunity SUSAN CAMPBELL TRACES THE EVOLUTION OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE AWARD, CELEBRATING ITS TWENTIETH YEAR IN 2021, WITH A SUBSTANTIALLY INCREASED PRIZE FUND.
operating since 2002 through a charitable bequest left by weaver, painter, sculptor and teacher, Helen Lillias Mitchell (1915-2000). The award resources visual artists, designers and makers, from or resident on the island of Ireland, to innovate and develop their work at a critical point in their career. Initially geared towards craftspeople and those who work figuratively in the visual arts, the criteria were expanded beyond these limits in 2018. The competition is now open to artists working across all forms of the visual and applied arts and crafts, culminating in one or more major awards and, where deemed appropriate, additional prizes. While the size of the fund varies from year to year, it generally totals around €20,000, distributed by its board of trustees on the basis of input by an advisory panel. To mark the award’s twentieth year – and to acknowledge the challenging backdrop arising from the global pandemic – the decision was taken to increase the 2021 prize fund to €50,000, comprising five awards of €10,000. Thanks to a recent additional bequest by the estate of engineer and artist, Seán Mulcahy, a further award of €10,000 has since been added, resulting in six prizes and a total fund of €60,000. This amplifies the trustees’ fulfilment of Lillias Mitchell’s wish “to give artists a ‘boost’ in times of particular need”. The winners will be drawn from a recently announced shortlist that, once again, represents practitioners from a range of disciplines. These are Aideen Barry, Bassam Al-Sabah, Fiona Byrne, Izzy O’Reilly, Jennifer Hickey, Laura Fitzgerald, Lorna Donlon, Maria McKinney, Sinead O’Dwyer and Tamsin Snow. Online alternatives to the usual in-person award ceremony, held in late March, are under review, and will be announced on the website (goldenfleeceaward.com). The legacy enshrined in the Lillias Mitchell trust fund reflects a life
