The results of the annual Hallett Independent Acquisition Award were announced as the 33rd edition of the LOPF opened in The Royal Academy of Art.
The winner had applied for the prize in hopes of acquiring a selection of prints to transform an entire hospital ward.
Fair director Helen Rosslyn said: “This award was set up to celebrate and support the diverse ways in which prints are collected and enjoyed around the country. Imperial Health Charity demonstrated an intelligent and sensitive approach to collecting, specific to the spaces in which the works are housed.”
The organisation is the only hospital art collection with a fully accredited museum and exhibition programme and it provides works for Charing Cross, Hammersmith, Queen Charlotte’s & Chelsea, St Mary’s and The Western Eye hospitals. It currently has 2000 artworks, including pieces by Patrick Caulfield, Julian Opie, Bridget Riley and Anish Kapoor.
Shortlist winners
This year, every institution on the shortlist also received one print donated by a Royal Academician. The Hunterian, The Russell-Cotes Museum, Graves Gallery and The Ben Uri Gallery received works by Stephen Chambers, Humphrey Ocean, Cathie Pilkington and Rebecca Salter. A print by Christopher Le Brun, president of the RA, went to Imperial Health Charity.
“The five shortlisted organisations all showed an impressive curatorial focus and we wanted to ensure that they would all be rewarded in some way,” Le Brun said.
Judges for this edition were fair director Rosslyn, Sam Phillips, editor of the RA Magazine, and Clare Pardy, director of museum and heritage services at Hallett Independent, with Le Brun serving as chair.
The LOPF runs until May 6.
