WELSH ARTIST AWARDS

The Friends administer two awards which actively promote Art in Wales.

The Richard and Rosemary Wakelin Award was established in the millennium year by their children in memory of their parents who were great supporters of the arts locally. The aim of the award is to purchase each year the work of a Welsh artist who is not yet well represented in public collections and whose talent deserves greater recognition.

The biennial Sir Leslie Joseph Young Artist Award which attracts graduates and post graduate artists from across the UK is given to an emerging young artist who has at some stage in their life been educated in Wales. It offers them the opportunity to hold their first professional solo exhibition in the Glynn Vivian where they gain Experience through collaboration with the gallery’s exhibitions officer. Its aim is to provide the winner with a helping hand at the start of their promising art career.

James Donovan, a talented painter, was the winner in 1998 and his figurative narratives of industrial communities in South Wales are now regularly sold out in exhibitions and through the Martin Tinney Gallery, Cardiff..

Daniel Molloy the 1996 winner has since won the D M Davies Award for new talent at the 2001 Welsh International Film Festival.

Will Nash, whose print shown below was part of his exhibition when he won in 2001, was selected for Sculpture in the Park at Bryanston School, Blandford, Dorset two years later where his work was shown with other artists including Sir Anthony Caro.