Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize (2013) - The Wilson

Leonce Raphael Agbodjelou , Untitled (Citizens of Porto-Novo), 2012

The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, 2013 is at The Wilson, Cheltenham until 20 July 2014.
The exhibition comprises 60 portraits selected from a competition entry of over 5000 submissions which were first shown at the National Portrait Gallery at the end of last year.
The winner of the £12,000 first prize was Spencer Murphy for his photograph of jump jockey Katie Walsh.

Spencer Murphy, Katie Walsh, 2013

Judge Rebecca Valentine commented: I think the quality of the photography  – the colours, the colour balance and the palette that he’s used – really stood out from everything else in the over 5,000 images we looked at. Her expression is almost one of defeat, she seems exhausted and looks so female, and clearly emotional, in what is a very masculine sport. All sorts of reasons: primarily the photography; secondarily the portraiture and thirdly the celebrity, make it a winner. (From NPG blog) 
 Second prize was awarded to Giles Price for Kumbh Mela Pilgrim Mamta Dubey and infant. His portrait is from a series shot at the 2013 Kumbh Mela Festival in Allahabad India. Taken outside the main hospital in a pop up studio, the portrait shows Mamta who was on a pilgrimage to the Kumbh.  

Giles Price, Kumbh Mela Pilgrim: Mamta Dubey and infant, 2013

Judge Suki Dhanda commented: What struck me about this portrait was that it is not a typical portrait of an Indian woman, photographed in India. Because of the plain, contrasting backdrop it could have been taken anywhere – it doesn’t have the busy background of a street scene or crowds typical of photographs made there. But the light is so beautiful it has to be in India and the combination of fabrics, the way she is isolated and the expression on her face as she looks at the camera, really caught my attention. (From NPG blog)
Third prize went to Anoush Abrar for Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Anoush Abrar, Kofi Annan, 2013

Judge Rebecca Valentine commented: The reason this particularly resonated was the power of the use of black and white and his expression. Ordinarily when people are photographed with their eyes closed, they look very serene and rested whereas he doesn’t. He looks troubled – he seems to have the weight of the world on his shoulders. I thought it was the perfect portrait of Kofi Annan. (From NPG blog)
Fourth Prize went to Dorothee Deiss for The twins. Her portrait, from her project VisibleInvisible, is of twin sisters she visited in their house. ‘I took a lot of more conventional portraits of them’, she says, ‘but when I found the bathrobe in a corner, perfectly fitting to the bedspread, that was when I knew I had the picture’.

Dorothee Deiss, The Twins, 2013

Judge Suki Dhanda commented: What’s interesting about this portrait is the composition and the layering of different colours in what is, on first glance, a very quiet picture. The restricted palette of tones that have been used for the bed sheets and the dressing gowns all seem to reflect the colour of the twins’ hair – these combined elements all made this portrait stand out. The way the two women are entwined means that they seem to merge. It’s complicated, but it doesn’t feel contrived. (From NPG blog)
Other shortlisted photographs include the pictures below and at top of post. To see selected portraits from previous competitions, see posts for 2012, 2011 and 2010.

Richard Alexander Pilnick , Cat & Phil - Painting of Love, 2013

Erik Almas, Holy Mother, 2012

William Lakin, Martyn, Sean and Jacob

Roger Ackling, 1947 - 2014

Roger Ackling, Memory Stick, 1978, in catalogue (boxed luggage labels) for "Fo(u)ndlings: an exhibition of 'found' art" at Coracle Press, 223 Camberwell New Road, London, SE5, 1978. (Exhibition also included Glen Baxter, Thomas A. Clark, Les Coleman, Simon Cutts, Richard Long, Len McComb, Eduardo Paolozzi, Tom Phillips, and many others; catalogue numbered 307 of an edition of 300 copies [sic].

Roger Ackling died on 5 June 2014.
Roger Ackling drew with light. His working method remained remarkably consistent from the 1960s until his death - indeed, Sylvia Ackling reported that he often said that he was 'always making the same work.'(1) His method was to focus the rays of the sun through a magnifying glass and burn lines onto pieces of found wood or card. The modestly scaled pieces have about them something of Minimalism, something of Conceptual Art, something of the Wabi-Sabi aesthetic he admired. They are simple, beautiful, perfectly imperfect.
Roger Ackling studied at St Martin's School of Art (1965-8) where he was a contemporary of Richard Long and Hamish Fulton; his gentle aesthetic has been associated with the Coracle Press, the Cairn Gallery, Nailsworth and the Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh.
Read obituaries by Richard Long and Chris Yetton.
(1) Sylvia Ackling (1998), 'Lines of Latitude', in Roger Ackling: Set Aside, London: Annely Juda Fine Art, [p53]

Roger Ackling, Five Sunsets in One Hour, 1978

Roger Ackling, France, 1986

Roger Ackling, Weybourne, 1992

Roger Ackling, Weybourne, 1995

Roger Ackling, Japan, 1996

Roger Ackling, Voewood, 2001

Roger Ackling, Voewood, 2009

Roger Ackling, Voewood, 2009

Roger Ackling, Voewood, 2010

Roger Ackling, Voewood, 2010

Roger Ackling, Voewood, 2011

Daniel Meadows - Library of Birmingham

Daniel Meadows, Portsmouth: John Payne, Aged 12, with Two Friends and his Pigeon, Chequer, 26 April 1974, 1974

Daniel Meadows: Early Photographic Work is at the Library of Birmingham until 17 August.
I saw this exhibition when it was at ffotogallery in 2012 and thoroughly recommend it. (I also recommend the Library of Birmingham - see blog entry here.) Read The Iron Room blog  about the exhibition. My own earlier blog is recycled here:
Daniel Meadows  describes himself as a 'documentarist' ...by which I mean that I am one who, in an attempt to make sense of the times in which we live, engages with others to gather, create and present – with as few fictional additions as possible – stories made out of photographs and/or oral testimony.

Meadows graduated from Manchester Polytechnic in 1973. After working at Butlin's, and collaborating with fellow graduate Martin Parr on Butlin's by the Sea, he toured England in a double-decker bus he bought for £360, in search of ordinary people to photograph. In the course of a 14-month journey, he offered free portrait sessions in 22 different towns, and photographed a total of 958 people, alone or in groups, the majority of whom remained anonymous and collected their free portraits the following day.

Once upon a time, I lived in a double-decker bus, reg. JRR 404, better known as the Free Photographic Omnibus. She was my home, my travelling darkroom and gallery.We were an unlikely couple; she with her crash gear box and temperamental ways, me with my bushy hair and homemade flares. But we got along okay and, during 1973 and '74, we travelled about making a national portrait of the English. We covered 10,000 miles shooting pictures and giving them away. 

Read an interview with Meadows on WalesOnline.

Daniel Meadows, portraits from 'Free Photographic Omnibus', 1973-4

Daniel Meadows, portraits from 'Free Photographic Omnibus', 1973-4

Daniel Meadows, portraits from 'Free Photographic Omnibus', 1973-4

Daniel Meadows, Barrow-in -Furness: "Boot Boys", October 1974, 1974

Daniel Meadows, from Butlin's by the Sea, 1972

Daniel Meadows, from Butlin's by the Sea, 1972

Daniel Meadows with 'Free Photgraphic Omnibus' (1947 Leyland Titan PD1), 1974

Robyn Denny, 1930 - 2014

Robyn Denny, Baby is Three, 1960

Robyn Denny died on 20 May 2014.

Robyn Denny was a significant figure in the development of post-war British abstract painting. In David Mellor’s judgement, “For eight years between 1961 and 1969, Robyn Denny painted what are arguably some of the most accomplished abstract paintings made in Britain in the twentieth century.” He is best known for his geometric abstractions of the 1960s and 70s. In 1973 he was the youngest artist to be given a retrospective at the Tate. His dedication to abstraction, however, meant that he became increasingly unfashionable and, together with contemporaries such as Richard Smith, all but disappeared from public view. (In an interview, entitled ‘The Invisible Man’, Richard Smith recalled: "Robyn Denny keeps saying, 'Our time will come, Dick. Our time will come.' And he's been saying this for years and years.")

As a student in the 1950s (St Martin’s, 1951-4, RCA, 1954-7), Denny belonged to the first generation to be influenced by the American Abstract Expressionists, principally through exhibitions at the Tate (1956 and 59), and shows by Pollock (1958) and Rothko (1961) at the Whitechapel.

Denny’s early work was characterised by gestural painting and typographical abstraction. The apotheosis of the latter was a mural commissioned for Austin Reed (‘great, big, wide, biggest’) in 1959.

In 1960 Denny was a key player in the organisation of ‘Situation’, an exhibition which responded directly to the scale and innovation of the American painters. The criteria for inclusion in ‘Situation’ were that paintings should be ‘abstract (that is, without explicit reference to events outside the painting) … and not less than 30 square feet.’ All accounts report that the exhibition was poorly attended, but the label recurred in ‘New London Situation’ at the Marlborough Gallery in 1961 and in an Arts Council exhibition, ‘Situation: an exhibition of recent British abstract art’ in 1962.

The paintings of the 60s were typically, large-scale paintings featuring geometrical forms, suggestive of doorways, with flat planes of colour in precisely adjusted, usually, muted colours. Later work changed the emphasis from vertical to horizontal and included areas of brilliant colour. In 1981 Denny moved to Los Angeles and made paintings which were typically monochromes out of which outcrops of scratched, coloured marks would emerge.
Read obituaries by Jeff Amos and in The Telegraph.

Robyn Denny, Home from Home, 1959

Robyn Denny, Austin Reed mural, 1959

Robyn Denny, Track 4, 1961

Robyn Denny, Out-Line, 1962

Robyn Denny,Life Line, 1963

Robyn Denny, Glass 2 From There, 1971

Robyn Denny, Head On 2, 1975

Robyn Denny, Windward Steam and Angel Dust, 1984 -87

Appendix: some images associated with Denny

Gordon House, catalogue cover design for 'Situation', 1962

Sylvia Sleigh, Portrait of the Situation Group, 1961. L to R, back row: Henry Mundy, Gwyther Irwin, William Turnbull, Peter Coviello; centre row: Gillian Ayres, John Plumb, Peter Stroud, Robyn Denny, Roger Coleman, Bernard Cohen; front row: Gordon House, Lawrence Alloway

Howard Hodgkin, Mr & Mrs Robyn Denny, 1960