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Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize
Bendigo Art Gallery's Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize is the richest open painting prize in the country, attracting some of Australia’s finest contemporary artists. The inaugural exhibition was held in 2003, and is biennial.
The Prize was initiated by Mr Allen Guy C.B.E in honour of his late brother Arthur Guy, with equal assistance provided by the R.H.S. Abbott Bequest Fund.
Arthur Guy was born in Melbourne on 24 November 1914 and was educated at Camp Hill State School in Bendigo and then at Ballarat Grammar School. He enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force in a signals unit and served in New Guinea. On 14 February 1945, aged 30, he was on a biscuit bomber mission when his plane was shot down near Lae. He is buried in the Lae War Memorial Cemetery.
Film - Sophie Boord, 'Stieg Persson on the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize', Bendigo Art Gallery
Courtesy of Sophie Boord and Bendigo Art Gallery
Film - Sophie Boord, 'Stieg Persson on the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize', Bendigo Art Gallery
I first heard about the prize through my gallery. I actually wasn't going to enter it, because I had a very bad run art prizes for a couple of years, and was feeling very grumpy about them. But the gallery really nominated me to put this particular work in, and I'm glad they did. It had quite an impact. I'd been steadily working away for a couple of decades. I had a lot of visibility early in my career, and that had waxed and waned. The winning of the prize was enough to get people back, oh, Stieg, I remember him; to get people back in looking at the work, the spin-offs of it were really good. It meant that the next show that I had, I was to sell more paintings. And I really think I probably sold more paintings than I would have if I hadn't have won that prize. It was a very positive development for the career.
Art prices, they come and go. And a lot of them have unusual stipulations. Some of them have age limits. Some of them have limitations on the type of work that one can do, figurative painting, for example, no abstract painting, like that.
The interesting thing about the Arthur Guy Memorial Prize is that it is for any type of painting, so that an abstractionist could enter it the same way as a portrait painter could. And in theory, the best painting will be chosen as that year's winner. That makes it far more interesting to a lot of artists. It's what they're about, rather than what a committee requires. So that's the thing that makes it, I think, a very interesting prize. It's almost by default becoming a litmus test of Australian painting. Every two years, you're going to get really good artists putting work in.
You can already see certain trends in painting being more prominent than others. I would imagine over a period of time, the show itself will become a very good indicator of the condition of Australian painting. The year that I won it, there was more abstract paintings. And certainly, the general feel of the room with a lot more somber, whereas this year, with Stephen Bush's award, and Stephen's a great indicator of this. The works are very figurative.
Less abstract painting, and the pallet is very high octane. There's shocking pinks, and acid greens, and it's not just in Stephen's work, but running through quite a number of the other works there, you have this elevated pallet. I couldn't have told you this was the condition Australian painting until I saw that. But now, as a generalization, I can say, well, there are these themes now running through, far more illustrative, far more figurative, flatter color, stronger colors. That seems to be what people are doing at the moment.
Certainly, amongst the artists that I've talked to, there's no objection to anyone who's won that prize. Everyone's had thought, well, it was a good painting, and it deserved to win. Certainly, Dale's painting was an excellent painting, and I thought clearly, the best painting in the show. Stephen's painting, I also thought was the best painting in the show. I think their plannings will last and stand up over decades.
So I think given the stature of Dale and Stephen having won that, as well, it just makes the prize very strong. There's people out there trying to win it now. Bendigo does a tremendous job on this, because it's not an easy show to hang, because you've got apples, and oranges, and mandarins, and mangosteens. It's just all over the place. Visually, it's a very difficult job for them to place it in the room, and I think they do a very good job of that. Given it's a regional gallery with a small staffing level, it's a tremendous effort to do it at that level.
Bendigo has been very friendly to contemporary art in Australia. Even before this prize, they had a commitment to showing contemporary art. They certainly buy very good works for their collection. And the prize actually dovetails quite nicely into that commitment they have to contemporary art.
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Artist Stieg Persson, winner of the 2003 Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, discusses the prize and the impact it has had on his career.
Film - Sophie Boord, 'Richard Guy speaks about Arthur Guy and the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize', Bendigo Art Gallery
Courtesy of Sophie Boord and Bendigo Art Gallery
Film - Sophie Boord, 'Richard Guy speaks about Arthur Guy and the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize', Bendigo Art Gallery
Arthur Guy who was my uncle, who was in the Signals Corp based in New Guinea towards the end of World War II. And one day, he decided to go for a flight in a biscuit bomber that was delivering supplies and probably ammunition to some troops throughout the Western Highlands, and he went for the ride. I don't think he was meant to be on the plane, but he went anyway. And it failed to return. Sadly, he didn't survive. He's been buried in the Lae military cemetery there.
And my father had always had a desire to go and visit his brother's graves. And it took a long time to convince my mother that Lae was an exciting place to visit. He then invited his three sons to go. Two of us couldn't go, but the third one, or the middle one, Peter, he went, and they visited the grave site. And there, Peter videoed our father looking down on the tomb of his late brother. And he whispered to his brother, I'm sorry it took me so long to come.
Peter said he didn't hear this stated. But when the video was replayed many, many years weeks later, the sound came through, and we could actually interpret what he said. And it was only then that members of the family realized how much it had meant to him to go there, and how much he really wanted to go all those years, but just hadn't done it. So then he thought a bit further, in pondering his life and the good fortune that he had to survive both North Africa and New Guinea. He felt, well, I've had a family, and been able to lead a full life. And my brother has missed out.
So he wanted to do something to commemorate the memory of his brother, and so he then went searching for a project. It had to be in Bendigo. My father had always said Bendigo had been very kind to the family, and he wanted to reciprocate and give something back to the community in Bendigo that would be meaningful, but something that appealed to him, and something of lasting value. And it was suggested to him after many projects had crossed his desk that this one from the Bendigo Art Gallery from John Higgs, the president, and Brian Baker, one of the directors, they put together this proposal that this art prize, the way it's structured today, that's all their idea. That totally appealed to my father.
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Richard Guy OAM, talks about his uncle Arthur Guy, killed whilst serving in the RAAF, and about how his father, Allen Guy C.B.E., decided to create a national painting prize in Arthur's memory: the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize.
Film - Sophie Boord, 'Jason Smith speaks about the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize', Bendigo Art Gallery
Courtesy of Sophie Boord and Bendigo Art Gallery
Film - Sophie Boord, 'Jason Smith speaks about the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize', Bendigo Art Gallery
We had 340 entries for this third prize. Of that 340 entries, at least 70% were by people we knew, who have established reputations as painters, who were making very good work. And that is an indication of the importance that this prize has assumed in its short history, recognizing what painters are trying to achieve. Last Friday, when we looked at the 42 works that had made it to the final list, what we were confronted with was such a diverse range of approaches to painting.
And I think this is one of the good things about the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize. It does encourage people who are undertaking that very primary, active painting, who clearly love paint, who are fascinated by it as a medium, and who manipulate it in such incredibly different ways. It's installed as a dynamic, fascinating, non-thematic group exhibition. You get radically different subject matter, next to radically different subject matter, conceptual art, minimal art, whatever practices people are following, or whatever aesthetic programs they're following, something as resolutely minimal as a John Nixon painting, next to a figure narrative painting.
On that basis, you undertake the very difficult process of inclusion and exclusion. And what we came to was a list of five, and then three, and then two. And at that stage, it's very difficult to let go of a particular artist's work. And in the final analysis, Stephen Bush gave us the combination of imagery, this strange image of a world on the brink of collapse or evolution. And that world is configured from the primal material itself, paint, in these lurid pinks, and greens, and rather acidic, otherworldly, poisonous, toxic colors.
So operated on a number of levels, not only materially, informally, but conceptually, and emotionally. When we were discussing the exhibition with some of the finalists on a Friday night after the announcement being made that Steven Bush was the recipient, one, his fellow artists were very generous about the fact that he was a deserving recipient of the prize. People have admired his work for a long time. But for a range of artists, this exhibition provided a very rich context in which to see their work, because it does present a wonderful survey of contemporary Australian painting.
And they don't happen that often in Australia. Not every museum will have the capacities or the scheduling opportunities to undertake a survey of contemporary Australian painting that is without a theme that is completely open, and I think this is what distinguishes the Guy Memorial Prize.
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Jason Smith, Director of Monash Gallery of Art and Judge of the 2007 Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, discusses the prize and the 2007 winning entry by Stephen Bush.
Film - Sophie Boord, 'Karen Quinlan discusses the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize', Bendigo Art Gallery
Courtesy of Sophie Boord and Bendigo Art Gallery
Film - Sophie Boord, 'Karen Quinlan discusses the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize', Bendigo Art Gallery
The generosity of the Guy family is really recognized by not only this gallery but this community, and we're indebted to the Guy family for initiating it. The negotiation started in 2002 with Allen Guy, who has lived in Bendigo for many, many years and over the years has been a great supporter of this gallery.
The idea of a prize was basically ours, because we felt that an aquisitive prize would help to build our contemporary collection, and so a national prize was established-- the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize. This prize is a $50,000 cash prize for the winning artist. It's basically made up of money from the Guy family and our own bequests. The prize offers artists an opportunity to enter a work without having a specific theme attached, so they can basically represent themselves in a manner that is unique to them.
In 2003, we launched the prize, and we had over 300 entries. We had 42 shortlisted, and the winner was Stieg Persson. Stieg is a Melbourne-based artist. This work, "Middle Management," talks about the chaos associated with being at that level. But in addition, Stieg is concerned with the decline of language and the way management jargon has entered our own dialog.
The prize brings together artists from all over Australia, and that gives us a really interesting survey of what's happening in two-dimensional painting. In 2005, Dale Frank, a Queensland-based artist, won, and that work is on permanent display in the gallery.
We're now waking on the 2007 exhibition. We had again over 300 entries, with over 40 shortlisted artists, and we're looking forward to a very interesting and diverse exhibition, and hopefully an interesting outcome.
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Karen Quinlan, Director Bendigo Art Gallery, discusses the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, now the richest open painting prize in Australia.
Painting - Stieg Persson, 'Middle Management', 2003, Bendigo Art Gallery
Courtesy of Stieg Persson and Bendigo Art Gallery
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Winner of the first Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, 2003.
Oil on cotton duck
Acquired with equal assistance from the RHS Abbott Bequest Fund, 2003
Painting - Dale Frank, 'Three Lies: Good things come in small packages', 2004, Bendigo Art Gallery
Courtesy of Dale Frank and Bendigo Art Gallery
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They will show you everything they have - their sexy bodies.
When the student is ready, the master will appear.
Laughter is the closest distance between two people while Happiness is not a state of mind, but a manner of travelling.
Tarampa Hotel, Tarampa Road, 2004
acrylic, varnish on linen canvas
Acquired with equal assistance from the RHS Abbott Bequest Fund, 2005
Painting - Stephen Bush, 'Jerks as a Passable Frown', 2006
Courtesy of Stephen Bush and Sutton Gallery
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Winner of the 3rd Arthur Guy Painting Prize, 2007.
Stephen Bush, Australia 1958
oil and enamel on linen
183 cm x 183 cm
Victorian Collections acknowledges the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
peoples as the first inhabitants of the nation and the traditional custodians of the lands
where we live, learn and work.
