Friday 21st June, 2002

The winners of the Macworld Awards 2002 were announced at a glittering black-tie event at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, with both Macworld editors and readers voting for the year’s best products.

This years extravaganza included a Vivid! theme with Moulin Rouge dancers and Richard E Grant conducted the award ceremony. Richard was a high-profile attendee at the MacExpo last year. At that time, he described himself as a “technosaurus with an Apple laptop.”

MASK was selected for the 2nd year running by IDG Communications to organise the Macworld Awards after the stunning success of last years event.

Sam French, IDG Communications stated “Once again Mask have surpassed our expectations – the Macworld Awards now sets the standard for our industry”.

Sponsors included: HP, Minolta-QMS, Apple, Square Solutions, PDE, MacUnlimited, MacExpo, Phase One, Thomson Multimedia, and Digit magazine.

To see some other pics of Richard and read more about the event from the UK MacWorld website, click here.

REG was in town Tuesday to present an award for the National Portrait Gallery to part-time artist Catherine Goodman. To read more about the event just click here.

Sue tells me that there is a paperback book soon to be released on the awards, with the foreward by Richard. The info is below:

The BP PORTRAIT AWARD 2002
Foreword by Richard E. Grant
Introductory essay by William Packer

190 x 125mm, 80 pages
With 60 colour illustrations
ISBN 1 85514 505 7

According to Denise:

“The Radio 2 interview was an approx. 3 minute telephone call from Grovenor House Art and Antique Fair. Richard commented on mega rich, beautiful people surrounding him who seemed to emit a Midas ‘glow’. He also said that the charity (Kids) would benefit by around £200,OOO.

Also mentioned current work projects. Seemed to emit a glow himself, though he declared prices of pieces were beyond his wallet. He seemed jaw-droppingly impressed that post-natal Liz Hurley was looking stunning – a fact confirmed by photos in papers today. Liz Hurley is one of the patrons of the charity.”

Denise also informs me that she’ll do a full transcript of the conversation and send it to me for the Temple site.

Sue adds:

The announcer first thanked him for coming onto to the phone to do the short interview. Richard said he wasn’t sure at first he was going to be there tonight, but was given four days off.

The announcer asked him what he was working on and Richard told him. Then he asked about the evening’s event and who had he seen. Richard mentioned Elizabeth Hurley was there and how fabulous she looked after having given birth only 2 plus months ago, then he mentioned a couple other people and said that were many mega rich in attendance from Europe, etc here to buy. That all the rich toffs were in attendance to purchase some of these great items.

They talked about the antiques and their prices. The announcer asked if he had seen anything he fancied and Richard said yes but doubt he could afford any. The announcer said but you’re a toff, you were in Gosford Park! Richard replied yes, a servant to the rich. Then they talked about the evening. Elizabeth ran an auction of some items and that there was a casino to fleece the mega rich.

The announcer asked about the KIDS organisation and Richard stated that both he and Elizabeth were patrons and then explained the KIDS organization, how it helps not just the disabled member, but the support it provides to the family as well and why it is an important organization etc.

Then the fellow thanked Richard and Richard reciprocated likewise. He sounded great! Very relaxed, nice little phone interview. And he went off to enjoy his evening!”

Rosemary reports that there is another episode in the Secret History series next week on Channel 4, according to the Radio Times. The last one – Secret History: Comet Cover Up – was shown last Thursday night at 9.00 PM and had Richard doing the voiceover for it. Of course, it doesn’t say if Richard is narrating this one, but perhaps we’d better get a tape running just in case!

And finally, Denise informs me (for UK fans) that HMV are selling the ‘Withnail and I’ DVD for £8.99 in their clearout sale. YAY!

Mucho thanks are extended to Denise, Sue and Rosemary for the reports.

The Independent – Tuesday 18th June, 2002

By Louise Jury, Media Correspondent.

Britain’s biggest prize for figurative painting, the £325,000 BP Portrait award, was won last night by a painter who heads the Prince of Wales’ scheme to help young artists. But Catherine Goodman, the director of the Prince of Wales Drawing Studio in the East End of London, insisted she had entered the National Portrait Gallery competition in a personal capacity. She collected her winner’s cheque from the actor Richard E Grant at a ceremony at the gallery, where her work goes on display tomorrow in an exhibition of 55 paintings chosen from 760 entries. While many artists are regulars in the annual competition, Goodman had never entered before and will be unable to do so again. She has turned 41 since the qualification date and will be ineligible in future for a prize designed to encourage young artists to develop the theme of portraiture in their work. Goodman said she had decided to enter this year only because she was particularly pleased with the winning portrait, a painting commissioned by Downside School in Somerset of its headmaster, Antony Sutch.

“Essentially I’m quite a private painter and I have quite a public job. I don’t go for lots of prizes," she said. The second prize went to Zygimantas Augustinas, a Lithuanian, who won £35,000 for his portrait, Man with Utensil (Oscar), a self-portrait inspired by the hero of Gunter Grass’s book Tin Drum. The third prize of =A33,000 went to Mark Shields, an artist who lives and works near Belfast, for his portrait of his wife.

Although the Turner prize at Tate Britain is regarded as the more glamorous and adventurous end of British art, the BP Portrait award routinely attracts more visitors. More than 167,000 people visited the exhibition of shortlisted works at the National Portrait Gallery last year and almost 172,000 the year before, about 100,000 more than visit the Turner prize show, a spokeswoman said. Last year’s winner, Stuart Pearson Wright, used the occasion to launch a withering attack on Sir Nicholas Serota, the director of the Tate gallery, for ignoring portraiture and championing the avant-garde. Alongside the portrait prize show will be works produced by Alan Parker, a Leicestershire police constable who won last year’s BP Travel award for his proposal to document the day-to-day life of the police force.

This year’s travel prize goes to Daisy Richardson and Jessica Wolfson, from the Glasgow School of Art, who intend to travel together on the Trans-Siberian railway and paint portraits of the other passengers.

Click here for The Guardian’s report.

The Guardian – Tuesday 18th June, 2002

By Maev Kennedy, Arts and Heritage Correspondent.

The pupils at Downside School have every right to be impressed at their new headmaster: last night his portrait won the £25,000 BP Portrait Award for his friend Catherine Goodman.

The painting of Antony Sutch was her first commissioned portrait, and the first time in many years that the competition has been won by a formal traditional portrait.

Despite the art world skirmishing over conceptual conceptual art crowding out figurative painting, the portrait competition, now in its 22nd year, attracted 760 entries of which 55 have been selected for exhibition.

Charles Saumarez Smith, director of the National Portrait Gallery and chairman of the judges, called it “thoughtful and beautifully painted”.

The Somerset school has a tradition of commissioning a portrait of each new headmaster. Ms Goodman said that she was surprised to get the job, as she is a part-time painter – she also runs the Prince of Wales’s drawing studio in Shoreditch – and is not known as a portraitist.

“I work very slowly, so he put as much into it as I did: the sittings were in his study at Downside, and it took two years to complete. He was very good, he sat beautifully still and only got up to check his messages when we took a break.”

The awards were presented last night by the actor Richard E Grant – a devotee of the National Portrait Gallery.

Second prize of £5,000 went to the Lithuanian born artist, Zygimantas Augustinas, for a self portrait inspired by Oscar, the hero of Gunter Grass’s novel The Tin Drum.

Irish painter Mark Shields, who lives near Belfast, won third prize, £3,000, for his portrait of his wife.

The travel award, for a work proposal from young artists, has gone to Daisy Richardson and Jessical Wolfson, who want to travel on the Trans Siberian Railway from Moscow to Beijing, using part of a railway carriage as a studio to paint their fellow travellers.

Click here for The Independent’s report.

There is a paperback book soon to be released on the awards, with the foreward by Richard. The info is below:

The BP PORTRAIT AWARD 2002

Foreword by Richard E. Grant
Introductory essay by William Packer
190 x 125mm, 80 pages
With 60 colour illustrations
ISBN 1 85514 505 7