Cranleigh Barton Drawing Award 1999

29 June - 8 August 1999

Artists from around the country were recently invited to submit drawings (in any graphic medium on paper no larger than A1 size) for the biennial Cranleigh Barton Drawing Award

The competition, which is designed to recognise excellence in drawing and raise the profile and status of the skill in contemporary visual arts practice, offers a $5,000 cash prize for the winning entry (up from $3,000 for the 1997 competition) and two merit prizes of materials valued at $500 each. Drawings selected by a panel of three judges will be exhibited at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery after the award winners have been announced on Monday 28 June 1999. This year will be the fourth time this competition has been held, with the last three premier award winners being Michael Dell, Nigel Buxton and Richard Lewer.

The Cranleigh Barton Drawing Award has been made possible through the legacy of Canterbury watercolourist Cranleigh H. Barton (1890-1975) and is jointly presented by the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Canterbury Museum and the executors of the Cranleigh Barton Estate, the Guardian Trust. The Award is supported by The Drawing Room in association with Staedtler. Cranleigh H. Barton was born in Fielding and attended Victoria University where he received three Turnbull scholarships and graduated with a Bachelor of Law degree in 1912. His interest in art began early, and in 1906, before beginning his university studies, he attended classes as a pupil of Maud Kimbell (Sherwood) at Wellington Technical College. Barton worked as a solicitor but continued part-time activity as an artist, becoming a working member of the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts in 1919 and joining the Canterbury Society of Arts in the following year.

In 1924, Barton commenced four years of study at the Slade School of Art in London, during which time he held two successful solo exhibitions of his work, with Queen Mary among his patrons. Barton also had works hung in exhibitions of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, the Royal Society of British Artists and the New English Art Club in London. In 1925, his work was included in the Dominion Artists Court at the Wembley British Empire Exhibition. Upon his death Barton bequeathed a substantial number of his watercolours to the Canterbury Museum which today has the largest holding of his work. He is also represented in the collections of the Hocken Library, Dunedin and the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.

Felicity Milburn

This exhibition was held at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery in the Botanic Gardens.