Turner Prize is an annual prize awarded to a British artist or artists. From 1991 to 2016, the prize was limited to artists under the age of 50. Beginning in 2017, artists 50 years old or older became eligible to win the prize. The prize was first presented in 1984. It has become the most prestigious and controversial award in British art. The Turner Prize is named for J. M. W. Turner, a noted English painter of the 1800’s.
Enormous publicity surrounds the selection of the prize winner each year. The annual debate over the Turner Prize generally centers on the unconventional nature of the nominated selections. Some traditional painters and sculptors have won the award. However, the winners typically work in such experimental areas as video art, which is based on the use of videos to create compositions, and installation art, which consists of ordinary objects assembled for a specific location, such as an art gallery. For example, the 1995 award was given to Damien Hirst for Mother and Child, Divided. The work consisted of a bisected cow and a calf pickled in formaldehyde in separate glass cabinets.
The prize is supervised by the Tate Britain museum and has been sponsored by a number of companies during its history. A short list of four artists is nominated by a jury of critics and museum curators and announced each May. The public is invited to submit nominations to the jury. The nominations and the award are based on the artists’ work from the previous year. An exhibition of the works of the four nominees then opens in October, typically at Tate Britain, and runs through January.
The jury selects the winner, which is announced in December. A cash prize is given to the winner and smaller awards to the other nominees.
Because of the publicity surrounding the award each year, the nominees and especially the winner normally receive boosts to their careers. However, the publicity is so intense that some artists have rejected being nominated to the short list.
