Mall Galleries and Foundation Derbyshire are pleased to announce the ninth winner of the Jonathan Vickers Fine Art Award, one of the largest art prizes for an emerging artist in the UK.

Glasgow-based artist Max Gimson (b. 1990) will take up the nine-month residency in Derbyshire, at Banks Mill, Derby, as he works towards two solo exhibitions: one at Derby Museum & Art Gallery, the other at Mall Galleries in London.

The biennial award brings a rising artist to Derbyshire to produce and exhibit a body of work inspired by the county’s landscape, heritage and people. In order to do so, Max will receive a bursary of £18,000 over the nine-month residency period, the use of a studio, expenses up to £3,000, and on-going support, mentoring, and professional development and teaching opportunities within the University of Derby’s BA (Hons) Fine Art programme.

Down Dandelion Lane, Oil on canvas, 163 x 140 cm

The continuing theme of the award is ‘A Sense of Place’, about which Max says: ‘‘‘A Sense of Place’ as a theme embodies everything that I try to achieve in my paintings. The works I make are a ‘feeling out’ of my immediate environment. Encounters and experiences that hang around like psychological barbs in my thoughts end up informing anything from the narrative and figurative forms in my work, to more intangible qualities like mood and passages of colour”.

A graduate of the Royal College of Art in 2019, Max says about his work more broadly: “I’m interested in the temporal qualities of painting as a medium, how a painted surface can be fast and visually impactful and also slow, revealing itself over prolonged viewing through the use of gesture and materiality, somewhat like sensing the histories of a location, overlapping and interplaying into a present moment, through architecture, people and nature.”

Rachael Grime, Chief Executive of Foundation Derbyshire, says: “We are delighted that Max is joining us as the ninth recipient of the award. We can’t wait to see how he responds to our county and brings his exceptional talent to bear on the residency”.

The nine-month residency will run from 1 October 2023 to 30 June 2024, following which Max’s solo, selling exhibitions will be held at Derby Museum & Art Gallery and Mall Galleries, London, between July 2024 and February 2025.

Previous winners of the Jonathan Vickers Fine Art Award have included Ed Burkes (2019/20), Eleanor Watson (2016/17), Kerri Pratt (2014/15), Bartholomew Beal (2012/13), Natalie Dowse (2007/08), Helena Ben Zenou (2005/06), Kerry Harker (2003/04) and Lewis Noble (2001/02).

Max Gimson in his studio

Saveloy Magic, Oil on canvas, 130 x 173 cm

The Jonathan Vickers Fine Art Award 2023/24 is open for entries until 26 May 2023.

The award is one of the country’s largest art prizes for an emerging artist. Founded in 1998, the award brings a rising artist to Derbyshire for nine months to create and exhibit a body of work in response to the landscape, heritage and people of the county on the theme ‘A Sense of Place’.

Over the course of the nine-month residency in Derbyshire, the selected artist will produce a new body of work for public exhibition at Derby Museum & Art Gallery and Mall Galleries in London.

In order to do so, the successful artist will receive:

• A bursary of £18,000 over the nine-month residency period (£2,000 per month) between 1 October 2023 and 30 June 2024
• The use of a studio at Banks Mill, Derby, for the duration of the residency and until 30 September 2024
• A solo, selling exhibition at Derby Museum & Art Gallery, including exhibition catalogue
• A smaller show at Mall Galleries, London, thereafter
• Expenses up to £3,000 towards materials, transport, and other production and exhibition-related costs
• The opportunity to work on an outreach project during the residency
• Professional development/teaching opportunities, support and mentoring within the University of Derby's BA (Hons) Fine Art programme

Below is a short video featuring previous winners of the award, Bartholomew Beal (2012/13), Eleanor May Watson (2016/17), and Ed Burkes (2019/20):

To quote the eighth winner of the award, Ed Burkes:

"It was such a catalyst and driver for my creative development: having the time and space to make a body of work, which is fully funded; but also my professional development, as since the award I have been making work on a full time basis. Two shows - one in London, one in Derby - as part of the residency, working with the university, community outreach project - it’s amazing, definitely apply!”

For more information about the award, including how to apply, click HERE.

National Mourning

The Federation of British Artists at the Mall Galleries joins with the Royal Family and the nation in mourning the death of Her Majesty The Queen.  She has been an active patron to our art societies and has supported us at Mall Galleries. In February 1971, The Queen gave us the honour of officially opening Mall Galleries.

We offer our condolences to the Royal Family.

Mall Galleries are still open but please plan your journeys ahead as we predict there will be disruptions due to our location on the Mall.

Mall Galleries will be closed on MONDAY 19 SEPTEMBER for Her Majesty The Queen Elizabeth II's State Funeral. 

Over the next 10 days of National Mourning, Mall Galleries programmes are subject to change or cancellation.

Please watch this page for upcoming information.

Image: 1971 - HM The Queen opens Mall Galleries

Kristian Evju was awarded the £5,000 cash prize for his painting Interventions IV, which captured the judges’ attention with its creativity, imagination, and excellent technique.

"His work appeals to me especially because of its smart combination of archival photography and geometric elements – a kind of collage that is clearly very meant but its meaning is teasingly unclear. Good looking and clever." - Jonathan Watkins, Director Ikon Gallery

Kristian talks more about Interventions, the series of drawings and paintings investigating early 20^th century archives of female mugshots, which the winning work is part of.

Kristian Evju Interventions IV Mixed media 60 x 100 cm £9,500

Buy now

There is currently a growing suspicion towards information and an increased disillusionment towards our own recording of reality. We don’t trust images or statements fully anymore.

In Interventions, I wanted to execute a purely visual investigation of the moment between freedom and incarceration and use the found imagery as factoids, re-represented as fiction.

The idea of an image as an avatar is familiar to us through social media profile pictures, passport photos, or video games.

We have gotten used to feeling in control of how we present ourselves.

The mugshot is an interesting antithesis to this idea, where the individual is documented clinically in what often is a low point in their lives.

I am trying to rewrite these moments in my drawings by combining visual facts from different mugshots into fictional representations, thus perhaps protecting the referenced individuals and transporting them into completely new environments.

I make sure that I know nothing about the individual when I use their faces as references, thus making the found imagery the only source of information.

The latest series of work in the series was more closely based on the ideas surrounding the mugshot. All the figurative elements reference real mugshots from American and Australian prison archives.

Still, they are re-contextualised so that the individuals sometimes even share features or appear with a different body than their own.

I wanted these pieces to be more sculptural - more like a tablet than a framed painting.

I produced a series of panels made from poplar wood and aluminium that I assembled using polished and glued together perspex to form physical lines going through the format in place of the previously painted ones.

Some of the wood is exposed, and other parts are painted, either directly onto the wood or on paper stretched onto the wood. The sides of the panels are made from brushed aluminum sandwiched between poplar ply. 

As I kept working on the series of panels, a different kind of context started appearing - less formal, more monochrome, volatile, and theatrical. And towards the end of the series, there are clear signs of a shift towards something different - the start of a different, almost operatic approach. 

Kristian Evju Interventions IX 60 x 100 cm

Discover more about Kristian

Browse & Buy Figurative Art Now

We were delighted to award Maddy Buttling the Mall Galleries Prize for Best Figurative Painting at last year’s Holly Bush Emerging Woman Painter Prize.

The prize is 8 Free Entries to Calls to Exhibit (worth £180), so we were excited to see what work Maddy would submit, and then keep our fingers crossed that it would be selected for exhibition by the Society’s Selection Committee.

We were very pleased to discover that Goodbye Mitsubishi! Was selected for the New English Art Club Annual Exhibition.

Goodbye Mitsubishi! Oil 16 x 21 cm £480

On an intimately small scale, Maddy's paintings ritualistically stalk household pets. She devotes herself to unironically deifying the ephemeral pet while observing the humour and tenderness of the relationship between human and animal. Goodbye Mitsubishi! bids farewell to a longstanding family car

We asked Maddy a few questions about her practice:

Past or present, what artist from the NEAC do you most admire? Why?

Gwen John (1876–1939). She paints small-scale interiors with cats!

Gwen John Girl with a Cat 1918–22 The Metropolitan Museum of Art

What is your favourite work in this year’s exhibition? Why?

I enjoyed On The Sofa by Max White. Within the fabric of the sofa I see the suggestion of a small black and white dog, but I think White is allowing you to see the things you want to see in this ambiguous picture of happy solitude.

Max White On the Sofa Oil 16 x 16 cm £300

What gallery did you first sell a work at?

My first gallery sale was at the RA Summer Exhibition 2020, it was a small painting of my deceased hamster called ‘Dead Pierre’.

Dead Pierre Oil on plywood 14 x 14 cm

Where do you produce your best work?

Being around my dog helps. I plan paintings through spontaneously taken photos on my phone. Usually in domestic spaces. Grief is also a huge influence, this idea of memorializing through the grandeur of oil paint. I really started painting when my childhood dog died.

What brand / paints make up your palette?

I mix a lot of colour so control and accuracy with my paint is important for me. I lean towards brands with a high pigment load, such as Michael Harding and the Winsor & Newton Artists’ line.

Do you have any rituals or routines when preparing and starting a painting?

Procrastination.

The New English Art Club Annual Exhibition runs from 25 June to 3 July 2021

Discover the whole exhibition

Book your timed ticket now

Whether the lockdown has meant you have spent more time in nature, or been separated from it, we hope you enjoy this collection of paintings of rolling hills and soaring mountains produced by members of the Federation of British Artists as part of The Figurative Art Fair.

View The Figurative Art Fair

Frances Bell RP Bonfire at Akeld Oil on board £1,845 Buy this painting

"In early spring there are number of attractive bonfires on farm yards as they prepare for the coming summer. I love the rusett light and blue smoke." Frances Bell RP

Akeld is a village in Northumberland.

Toby Wiggins RP Burning Rock: Mount Elijah above Ano Boularii, Mid-afternoon Oil on canvas £4,500 Buy this painting

"Lemon yellow, red ochre and stark, bleached whiteness. Shards of rock push through dry stream beds, stunted leathery shrubs - needle, spike, spine and prickle all baked and cured in the fierce sunlight." Toby Wiggins RP

Toby Wiggins RP Mani Mountain Tower Oil on canvas £4,500 Buy this painting

‘...towers and walls that so exactly tallied in texture and colour with the stone crop of the surrounding hills that it was as if the landscape had shrugged them together into a system of lanes and shot those tall parallelograms into the air on a sudden subterranean impulse.’ Patrick Leigh Fermor 

Andrew Stock SWLA Alpine Ridgeway Watercolour £800 Buy this painting

"Alpine Ridgeway was painted in Austria (Gargellen) in February 2019. It was one of a series of Alpine paintings I worked on." Andrew Stock SWLA

Richard Rees PS Sahara Fort, Morocco Oil pastel on paper £525 Buy this painting

"The Fort is right on the edge of the great sand dune area south of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and near an area popular for overnight camel trips. The scale of the dunes is emphasised by the juxtaposition of the Fort in the foreground. The light is near sunset, which makes the sand glow and emphasises the sinuous form of the dunes." Richard Rees PS

Salliann Putman NEAC Black Hills Watercolour & gouache £775 Buy this painting

Clare Haward NEAC County Sligo Oil on linen on board £900 Buy this painting

Tessa Coleman NEAC Crushed Milk Bottle and Paper Bag Oil on gesso panel £1,500 Buy this painting

"This still life was playtime in the studio. I just grabbed a few odds and ends that were lying around and made the painting all about the colour and abstract shapes that came about by a haphazard arrangement of objects, observed up close from a low point of view. " Tessa Coleman NEAC

I think this looks like a mountain scene, so I included it in this collection!

David Allen RSMA Winter Sun, Bolton Abbey Oil £750 Buy this painting

Colin Allbrook RSMA RI River Taw 22nd April 2020 Oil on board £495 Buy this painting

"One of a series of the River Taw and valley opposite my house here in North Devon painted "pleine aire" during this current lockdown." Colin Allbrook RSMA RI

There are lots more landscape paintings in The Figurative Art Fair

View The Figurative Art Fair

The Figurative Art Fair is the only exclusively online art fair for the finest contemporary representational art.

Presented by the Federation of British Artists, The Figurative Art Fair features 248 works for sale by around 100 elected members of the country’s leading national art societies, including:

• The Pastel Society (PS)
• Royal Society of British Artists (RBA)
• Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI)
• Royal Society of Portrait Painters (RP)
• New English Art Club (NEAC)
• Royal Society of Marine Artists (RSMA)
• Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA)
• Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI)

Make a Donation

Exhibition Admission is usually £5. If you enjoy viewing the exhibition online, and could consider making a donation to help us through this period of closure, any amount would be greatly appreciated.

If eyes are the windows of the soul, what meaning do windows have in paintings? Letting the light in, allowing us to breathe, giving us an escape, keeping us snug and safe when it is dark outside.

There are lots of windows in the paintings in The Figurative Art Fair. 

View The Figurative Art Fair

Tessa Coleman NEAC Rear Window Oil on canvas £1,900 Buy this painting

"This is a small painting of light-catching surfaces. The challenge here was how to capture a sense of Charlene’s features whilst looking directly into the light of the window behind her, as most of the time the details of her features were practically invisible against the light. I tried to keep the whole painting as minimal and as delicate as possible without losing the bite in the drawing.

I kept in mind Vermeer’s Lacemaker whilst grappling with Charlene, a painting unsurpassed in my view for containing an entire world in a tiny slice of life.

In Lawrence Gowing’s words: “The Lacemaker bends intently over her pursuit, unaware of any other happenings, it is perhaps the fact that she is so absorbed, enclosed in her own lacy world, that allows us to approach her so close.”

Looking at the painting up close one sees all surface light being described in marvellously delicate and subtle paint application, the red skeins of thread being spun into lace are utterly extraordinary, paint and thread simultaneously." Tessa Coleman NEAC

Melissa Scott-Miller RP NEAC RBA Irises on a Studio Stool by a Sunny Window Oil on canvas £900 Buy this painting

"This is a square oil painting of flowers next to a window on a sunny day, with closely observed and detailed rendering of the petals and painterly rendering of the artists' wooden paint-encrusted stool." Melissa Scott-Miller RP NEAC RBA

June Berry NEAC The African Violet Watercolour £800 Buy this painting

Andrew Farmer ROI Wild Flowers Oil on panel £450 Buy this painting

"An original oil painting from my ongoing Wild Flowers series, this piece was painted from direct observation. The flowers were collected during our daily exercise under lockdown here in the UK." Andrew Farmer ROI 

James Horton PPRBA Kitchen Interior with Tulips Oil on canvas £2,300 Buy this painting

Part of a series of Lockdown Interiors by James Horton, Past President of the Royal Society of British Artists.

Victoria Jinivizian NEAC Tidcombe Oil on gesso panel £2,100 Buy this painting

Steven Outram RBA Belonging Oil £2,300 Buy this painting

"Twilight - a figure on a path seeing a house surrounded by trees, with stars in a fading blue sky - seeing the beauty of place." Steven Outram RBA

David Poxon RI When We Were Young Pure watercolour £2,250 Buy this painting

Neil Pittaway NEAC Blue Danube Facade Pen and ink drawing on paper £850 Buy this painting

"This detailed dip pen and ink drawing is based from drawings I made on earlier trips to Budapest and Bucharest and is based on the Art Nouveau Architecture of both those cities and is a romanticised and imaginary interpretation of that period's architecture and culture with the title referencing Johan Straus' Waltz of the Blue Danube." Neil Pittaway NEAC

Rosa Sepple PRI Kitchen Window Water-based mixed media £2,450 Buy this painting

"The view through the kitchen window of a spring holiday home along the Cornish coast." Rosa Sepple PRI

Richard Sorrell RBA NEAC Memory Room Acrylic £825 Buy this painting

Richard Sorrell RBA NEAC Spring Indoors Oil £2,225 Buy this painting

There are other windows in the paintings in The Figurative Art Fair to explore...

View The Figurative Art Fair

The Figurative Art Fair is the only exclusively online art fair for the finest contemporary representational art.

Presented by the Federation of British Artists, The Figurative Art Fair features 248 works for sale by around 100 elected members of the country’s leading national art societies, including:

• The Pastel Society (PS)
• Royal Society of British Artists (RBA)
• Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI)
• Royal Society of Portrait Painters (RP)
• New English Art Club (NEAC)
• Royal Society of Marine Artists (RSMA)
• Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA)
• Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI)

Make a Donation

Exhibition Admission is usually £5. If you enjoy viewing the exhibition online, and could consider making a donation to help us through this period of closure, any amount would be greatly appreciated.

For almost as long as there has been painting, there have been paintings of dancers and people dancing. There are 9,000-year-old cave paintings of dancers in India, 5,000-year-old paintings of Egyptian dancers. Painters throughout the ages have sought to capture the movement, music and joy of dance in paint.

Members of the Federation of British Artists are no different, and here is a collection of contemporary paintings of Dancers from The Figurative Art Fair

View The Figurative Art Fair

Charles Williams NEAC Old People Dancing Oil on canvas £1,500

"Old People Dancing was an image that seemed to emerge unbidden while I was painting. I don't know why: it was about a month before the recent pandemic, so perhaps it was some kind of premonition." Charles Williams NEAC

Chris Bennett ROI Blue Girls II Oil on panel £3,600

Aimee Birnbaum RI Moving As One Watercolour embossed £800

"Moving As One is an embossed watercolour.  It is part of my series of dancers in perpetual motion. It is a metaphor for how we are with each other, reacting and balancing. My own dance training helps me to imagine the figures released from the normal constraint of gravity." Aimee Birnbaum RI

Aimee Birnbaum RI Spring Revelry Watercolour & etching £500

"Spring Revelry is about expressing a release of energy and life force, after a long period of hibernation." Aimee Birnbaum RI

Peter Clossick NEAC Degas Sculpture, Dancer Looking at the Sole of her Right Foot Pen & ink on paper £400

Tessa Coleman NEAC Robert The Dancer Oil on cradled gesso panel £4,500

"Robert is the most elegant of life models, as a professional dancer, he is extraordinarily lithe and flexible and holds a pose with impeccable grace. This is the quality I aimed to capture in this painting of Robert, done in the company of three other painter friends over the course of four painting sessions. It was one of those paintings that fell into place quite naturally, the fineness of Robert’s bone structure and his supple and upright pose reflected in the elegance of the house plants that he is nestled behind.

Painting fabric folds and patterns is not the specialist subject is used to be now that everyone wears jeans, but working out how to paint Robert’s kaftan reminded me of the airy Philip Pearlstein portrait of Linda Nochlin and Richard Pommer I saw a couple of years ago in New York. In the painting Linda Nochlin is wearing a blue and white geometric patterned dress and Philip Pearlstein has painted the folds of the material and the fall of light so precisely, yet with such lightness of touch: paint and fabric at the same time, hard to do and wonderful to look at." Tessa Coleman NEAC 

Ian Cook RI Rehearsal Steps Oil & acrylic £850

"A novice dancer makes tentative strategies on the dance floor, pointing her foot in the pattern of aesthetic hopscotch, visible only to her." Ian Cook RI

Raymond Leech RSMA Arabesque Oil £1,875

Julian Bailey NEAC Bather, Tasmania Oil £4,200

Can you spot the paintings of Singer and Musicians in The Figurative Art Fair? 

View The Figurative Art Fair

The Figurative Art Fair is the only exclusively online art fair for the finest contemporary representational art.

Presented by the Federation of British Artists, The Figurative Art Fair features 248 works for sale by around 100 elected members of the country’s leading national art societies, including:

• The Pastel Society (PS)
• Royal Society of British Artists (RBA)
• Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI)
• Royal Society of Portrait Painters (RP)
• New English Art Club (NEAC)
• Royal Society of Marine Artists (RSMA)
• Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA)
• Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI)

Make a Donation

Exhibition Admission is usually £5. If you enjoy viewing the exhibition online, and could consider making a donation to help us through this period of closure, any amount would be greatly appreciated.

Cheryl Culver PPPS RBA speaks about her life and work from her home studio during lockdown.

Cheryl currently has work in The Figurative Art Fair, the only exclusively online art fair for the finest contemporary representational art.

Cheryl Culver PPPS RBA Sunflowers (2018) Pastel, 85 x 48 cm, £950

Hello everyone!

Little did I suspect when I joined the Federation as CEO just over a year ago what a tumultuous period would await us this spring!

After a wonderfully strong 2019, we enjoyed a powerful opening to this year by showcasing young talent with our FBA Futures exhibition, plus great crowds and sales at the eagerly awaited annual shows of The Pastel Society and Royal Society of British Artists.

But then everything changed and, like the rest of the world, in March, we urgently had to respond to the Coronavirus emergency. We scrambled our excellent team, notified our artists and stakeholders. We then quickly closed our beloved Mall Galleries -  simultaneously scaling up our digital operation like never before.

It says a lot about our dedicated staff that, on that last day,  we opened the locked door to one lone visitor at the eleventh hour – a lady who had travelled 2 hours to come and see our Portrait Journey exhibit. Our receptionist gave her a quick ‘private tour’ and she then rushed home. Little did she know she was our last visitor to the Mall for what will be many weeks….

The doors may be shut but the message is we are proudly open for business – and our Member artists are more than ever the heart of what we do. We call them the FBA600 (actually the number fluctuates between 580 and 610 depending on arrivals and departures!).

Across our nine Art Societies, they represent the front bench of British painting (and more). They are now, like the rest of us, in isolation, in lockdown, but are highly active preparing and in many cases taking inspiration from the challenge of the times.  Tim Benson, President of Royal Institute of Oil Painters puts this across in his inspiring short video.

Over the coming weeks you’ll see more of our artists’ work and stories online and for our current exhibition the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours we are doing virtual versions of tours and demonstrations.

Deborah Walker RI RSMA Be Still

Video links are now a key part of my daily life and it really helps keep our team of 21 or so in touch and motivated on the job in hand. Thinking differently is a key part of our response – as well as planning for a wonderful reopening. We are exploring our first video conference for life drawing with the Hesketh Hubbard Society, and exploring with our portrait artists the opportunity of ‘zoom sittings’. Watch this space!

We’ve had lots of messages of support and goodwill from Friends, supporters, artists and many across the art and media world. And our dedicated board is very active. We have quickly adapted to this new world and it’s encouraging that our first exhibitions online are getting a lot of attention  - and audiences are snapping up the artworks (for which thank you).

Do take a look at some of our April initiatives, and I hope you make our website a regular destination. If you don’t already, you can subscribe to our e-newsletter or follow us on social media via the links in the footer.

I do encourage you to join so we can keep in touch with you. There’s lots coming in the next few weeks!

Like many small businesses, and especially charities, the FBA operates on a financial knife edge. Our wonderful location on The Mall is a great asset but it is, of course, a significant cost when we can’t welcome visitors to our exhibition, shop and café; and can’t sell artworks or hire the space. Like other organisations, we are ‘furloughing’ some of our staff so we can keep the expertise available to us when we can’t directly use it – such as our front of house and shop team. We are exploring all funding avenues to help us through.  But the hard fact is we do need the public support to keep the ship afloat.

Rob Pointon ROI Visitors the Royal Institute of Oil Painters Annual Exhibition

The very best way you can support is to buy a work of art from our online collections or consider a commission. This of course directly provides income to artists who often have no other source. And it makes a critical contribution to our running costs. As well as the current exhibitions we have just launched a new general collection on our Buy Art | Buy Now platform. There is a new free online catalogue for you to browse here.

If you are already a Friend of the Mall Galleries, thank you and please remain.  If you are not, please do consider joining, we can offer lots of engagement even in this lockdown.

With best wishes for the Spring

Clare O'Brien