Press release
9/10/09
Broadcaster Kirsty Young will chair a panel of seven high profile judges who will choose the winner of The Art Fund Prize for museums and galleries 2010, the UK’s largest single arts prize. Kirsty’s fellow judges come from the worlds of media, arts, culture, science and academia:
- Kirsty Young (Chairman), broadcaster
- Kathy Gee, museums and heritage adviser
- Professor A C Grayling, Professor of Philosophy, Birkbeck College, London
- Professor J Steve Jones, Professor of Genetics, University College London
- Sally Osman, communications consultant and former Director of Communications, BBC
- Lars Tharp, Director, The Foundling Museum and BBC Antiques Roadshow expert
- Jonathan Yeo, artist
Of the Prize Kirsty said: “My fellow judges and I are delighted to be charged with awarding the 2010 prize, which celebrates excellence. We can’t wait to uncover some hidden gems and to enjoy the UK’s rich cultural offerings.”
In February 2010 the judges will announce their long list of ten institutions. They will then travel across the UK visiting each long listed organisation. A short list of four finalists will be announced in early May 2010. The winner of the £100,000 prize will be announced at a prestigious award ceremony in London in summer 2010. The submission process is underway and museums and galleries are invited to enter by 30 November 2009. Visit www.artfundprize.org.uk for more information.
The Judges
Kirsty Young (Chairman)
Kirsty Young is one of the country’s best-known radio and television presenters. In 2006 Kirsty became the new presenter of BBC Radio Four’s Desert Island Discs, and in January 2007 she took over as presenter of BBC1's Crimewatch. Her other BBC credits include presenting and reporting for Holidays Out, Holiday '96 and Film '96 on BBC1, and she has been a guest host on BBC’s Have I got News for You on several occasions.
Born in Glasgow, her journalistic career began in 1989, news reading for BBC Radio Scotland, before moving to Scottish Television in 1992. For many years, she was Five's main news anchor, as well as presenter of news specials and documentaries. She also hosted the Big Ideas Philosophy Launch with Professor Germaine Greer.
Kirsty received the prestigious Sir James Carreras Award for ‘Outstanding New Talent of 1997’ at the 46th Variety Club Showbusiness Awards. In March 1998 she was named ‘Newscaster of the Year’ at the Television & Radio Industries Club Awards.
Kathy Gee
Kathy is a museums and heritage adviser and Director of Volition Associates, which works in the cultural sector to enable strategic and individual development. An archaeologist and curator by training, Kathy spent many years working as an adviser in the independent museum sector before becoming Chief Executive of the West Midlands Regional Museums Council in 1990 and subsequently of its successor, Museums, Libraries and Archives (MLA) West Midlands until 2006.
Kathy has been extensively involved in the development of museum policy at national level. In 1995 she published The Heritage Web, the principle of which later underpinned the establishment of the Museums Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) in England.
Kathy received the Outstanding Contribution award in the Museums & Heritage Awards for Excellence, 2006. She is a Trustee of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Heritage Lottery Fund, a Governor of the University of Wolverhampton and Trustee of Avoncroft Museum of Buildings.
Professor A C Grayling
Anthony Grayling MA, DPhil (Oxon) FRSL, FRSA is Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford.
Professor Grayling has written and edited over twenty books, and writes a regular column for The Times. He frequently contributes to the Literary Review, The Observer, Independent on Sunday, Times Literary Supplement, Index on Censorship and New Statesman, BBC Radios 4, 3 and BBC World Service. He is the Editor of Online Review London, and a Contributing Editor of Prospect magazine. He sits on the editorial boards of several academic journals, and for nearly ten years was the Honorary Secretary of the Aristotelian Society. He is a representative to the UN Human Rights Council for the International Humanist and Ethical Union.
Professor Grayling is a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association. He is a Trustee of the London Library, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In 2003 he was a Booker Prize judge.
Professor J Steve Jones
Steve Jones is a professor of genetics and head of the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London. He is also a television presenter and a prize-winning author on the subject of biology and is one of the best known contemporary popular writers on evolution. In 1996 his writing won him the Royal Society Michael Faraday prize.
Professor Jones has a BSc and PhD degrees from the University of Edinburgh together with a variety of honorary degrees. His book In the Blood explores, confirms and debunks some commonly held beliefs about inheritance and genetics. Topics explored include issues as diverse as "lost tribes", European royal families, and haemophilia. His latest work, Darwin's Island, is an attempt to update Darwin's lesser known writings, from earthworms to the expression of the emotions.
Professor Jones is a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association. He was awarded the Irwin Prize for ‘Secularist of the Year’ by the National Secular Society in 2006.
Sally Osman
Sally Osman is a consultant specialising in integrated marketing and communications, corporate, organisational and brand storytelling. She was the BBC’s Director of Communications for nearly 10 years, heading strategic communications for the last BBC Charter and Licence Fee settlement, as well as numerous crises and consumer campaigns.
Before the BBC, Sally Osman was part of the Channel 5 launch team and also led BSkyB’s communications operation during its early growth. She is an award-winning magazine editor and former journalist with the Daily Mail and Western Mail in Cardiff.
She is a fellow and former Vice Chair of the Royal Television Society and a trustee of the National Foundation for Youth Music and The Art Fund.
Lars Tharp
Lars Tharp is the Director of the Foundling Museum, London, where, thanks to Thomas Coram, William Hogarth and G F Handel, philanthropy merges with art and music. Lars is a regular contributor to the Antiques Roadshow which, as a specialist in Chinese and European ceramics he joined in 1986 while still a director at Sotheby’s. He is also a regular broadcaster on radio, talking about objects.
He has been involved with museums since early childhood, read archaeology at Cambridge and has led several cultural tours from China to his native Scandinavia. As author and guest curator he devised York’s three-part ceramic exhibition Fired Up (2006) and Hogarth’s China (1997).
He lectures extensively and was made an honorary Doctor of Arts at De Montfort University where he is currently a visiting professor. As a very amateur cellist he is passionate about music and marginally less obsessive about the life and times of William Hogarth.
Jonathan Yeo
Jonathan Yeo is an artist who specialises in contemporary portraits and collages. He taught himself to paint in his early twenties while recovering from lymphatic cancer and went on to create portraits of such diverse personalities as Rupert Murdoch, Erin O'Connor, Prince Philip, Nicole Kidman and Grayson Perry. Amongst his best known work is a painting of former PM Tony Blair wearing a bright red remembrance poppy and a collage of president George W Bush made from pornographic magazines.
Public and private collections featuring his work include the National Portrait Gallery, The House of Commons, the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Dennis Hopper, Damien Hirst and Andrew Lloyd Webber. He lives in London and is married with two daughters.
Ends |
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