Young Writers Programme awarded Grant For Young Artistis

Published on Tue 12 Jul 2011
The Royal Court's Young Writers' Programme was awarded the Grant For Young Artists yesterday in the prestigious Praemium Imperiale award given annually by the Japan Arts Asosication

The Royal Court’s Young Writers’ Programme was awarded the Grant For Young Artists yesterday in the prestigious Praemium Imperiale award given annually by the Japan Arts Asosication.

The prize of five million yen was awarded jointly for the first time and will be divided between the Royal Court and the Southbank Sinfonia.

The Praemium Imperiale Awards, established in 1988, honour individuals from all over the world who have made an outstanding contribution to the development of the arts and are made in five categories – Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Music and Theatre/film. This year’s laureates were Judy Dench for Theatre/Film, Anish Kapoor for Sculpture, Bill Viola for Painting, Ricardo Legorreta for Architecture and Seiki Ozawa for Music.

In addition to the Praemium Imperiale awards in five categories, the Japan Art Association gives an annual grant of five million yen to a group or institution that encourages the involvement of young people in the arts. The Grant for Young Artists was inaugurated in 1997 to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Praemium Imperiale.

Lord Patten, UK’s International Advisor to the Praemium Imperiale and a key figure in the selection for the Grant for Young Artist this year, said:

“The five new Laureates have all done great, innovative work in their fields. It’s also a measure of the strength of artistic talent in this country that two of them are British. I’m delighted for them and what they’ve achieved. I’m also delighted that the Grant for Young Artists will be given to these two important young peoples’ organisations”.

Previous UK and UK-based Laureates include David Hockney, James Stirling, Anthony Caro, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Richard Attenborough, John Gielgud, Peter Brook, Richard Rogers, Tony Cragg, Norman Foster, Bridget Riley, Richard Hamilton, Richard Long, Zaha Hadid, Alfred Brendel and Tom Stoppard.

The awards were announced at a press conference yesterday at Claridges, which was followed by a reception at Buckingham Palace.