Past Exhibitions

RWS / Sunday Times Watercolour Competition

at Bankside Gallery, London

The Royal Watercolour Society is the new sponsor of the most prestigious annual watercolour event (previously the Singer and Friedlander / Sunday Times Watercolour Competition). The Royal Watercolour Society / Sunday Times Competition is one of the few remaining prizes to celebrate the diversity and beauty of the frequently undervalued medium of watercolour. The result is a visual feast of dynamic and challenging paintings.

THE WINNING IMAGE: David by the Window by Jennifer McRae

 Select images from the 2008 Exhibition:

David Firmstone RWS The Persistence of Memory Winner of the Penguin Illustration Prize	Cameron Galt Late Saturday Morning
Mick Davies Man U Fans	Peter Haslam-Fox Building Blocks
June Berry RWS Nightwalker	Brian Woods Maelstrom
Michael Williams Island and Waterhole

Richard Sorell, Former President of the Royal Watercolour Society:

The Royal Watercolour Society is delighted to take over as the sponsor of this, the most prestigious watercolour event of the year. There is a new vigour and enthusiasm for watercolour these days. More and more fine painters are taking up the medium. The RWS has defined ‘a watercolour’ to mean ‘a painting in a water-based medium on a paper-based support’. This definition encompasses a vast range of work of infinite variety, and the RWS is keen to encourage the extension of the language of painting and especially of watercolour in all ways.

Watercolour in its purest form is painting with transparent washes and leaving the white of the paper as highlights. It is the most difficult of media. One must make decisions about drawing, colour, tone, composition as well as meaning and sentiment all at the same time. These feats of intellectual juggling with so many different elements would tax anyone, and when a painting made in such a way is successful, it is the cause for celebration and wonder. Such a painting is Jenny MacRae’s portrait of her husband (above) which is an amazing work, strong subtle and magnificent.
 
Also shortlisted was Late Saturday Morning by Cameron Galt - a splendid modern still life of great strength. Other uses of watercolour, encompassing gouache, acrylic, and collage will suit other kinds of painters, and through their use they will be able to produce strong or delicate, haunting or astonishing images. Look at the power of David Firmstone’s landscape with its enigmatic dog in the foreground, or June Berry’s delightful painting. Look at the night-time urban landscape of Peter Haslam Fox, with its excellent painting of cars and buildings. There is a fine sea painting by Michael Williams; Mick Davis has made a lively and rumbustuous celebration of a football victory and Brian Woods has produced a great picture of scrabbling figures.

As a Society of practising artists ourselves, we understand the difficulties and the elations of an artist’s life. We look forward to a long association with this event, which we believe will bring the very best of watercolour painting to the attention of a wide public.