2006 National Painting and Printmaking Award
Judge Emma Bugden (left) and Richard Lewer with his winning entry
“Best tackler”
This award run by the Waikato Society of
Arts Inc. and held in conjunction with the Hamilton Gardens Summer
Festival is a prestigious event on the National Arts calendar.
The
Award funded by the Philip Vela Family Trust, which each year provides
the prize of $15,000 and also purchases the winning work makes it one of
the country’s most valuable awards and an opportunity for artists to
have work included in an important New Zealand collection.
Emma Bugden, curator of Wellington’s City Gallery returned from an overseas trip just in time to judge the Award in February.
The
winner was ex Hamiltonian Richard Lewer with “Best tackler”,
a watercolour and PVA glue-on-canvas work and was awarded $15,000 prize
money.His work referred to when he was judged ‘best tackler of the
season’ in his rugby team in 1982, the year of the controversial
Springbok tour.
Four Merit awards were:
Maryrose Crook of Port Chalmers ‘Bringing all the things that run’
Nichola Farquhar of Auckland ‘I love you so much it hurts’
Chris Clements of Dunedin ‘I slept through the whole thing’ ‘and so I didn’t miss’ ‘what I had missed’
Glen Hutchins of Auckland ‘White Rider’