Drawing 2011 Biennial Fundraiser
Exhibition dates:
7 April–18 May 2011
Auction night:
18 May 2011
CLOSE OF BIDDING at SILENT AUCTION EVENT and AUCTION ONLINE
Wednesday 18 May, 18.30–20.30
www.drawingroom.org.uk/drawing2011
The Drawing Room’s fifth Biennial Fundraiser has once again attracted an impressive line of up of over 200 works from Turner Prize winners such as Richard Long and Mark Wallinger and this year’s nominee George Shaw, to exciting emerging artists such as Anna Barham who has shown at the ICA, and Nicholas Hatfull, recently included in ‘Newspeak: British Art Now’,Saatchi Gallery. Now firmly established on the art world calendar, Drawing Room’s Fundraiser exhibition is an essential destination for collectors, artists, critics and curators who wish to see the latest developments in contemporary drawing practice and pick up a unique work of art that represents outstanding value for money.
Three months before the Fundraiser exhibition opens, each artist is sent a piece of A4 cartridge paper and is asked to return it with an original drawing. This process ensures that the auction comprises individual works of art of exceptional quality. In support of the Drawing Room’s 10th anniversary and its highly distinct activities, artists have been extraordinarily generous and this exhibition demonstrates the richness and diversity of drawing today.
For a starting price of 250 GBP, the format of the silent auction means anyone can bid (either on line, on the phone or in person) for an original work of art, whether it is a first ever purchase, or an addition to a major collection.
Just some of the highlights this year include Paula Rego’s ‘St Mary of Egypt’, (the rarity of Rego’s drawings set off a bidding war in our 2007 auction), Bob and Roberta Smith’s diatribe against the recent cuts to the Arts, George Shaw’s portrait of Dickie Attenborough as ‘Christie’, David Austen’s watercolour of ‘Elizabeth Taylor’, Dawn Mellor’s ‘Dustin Hoffman’ and ‘Mia Farrow’, George Bolster’s drawing of Alexander McQueen and Markus Vater’s love bug.
The bidding culminates during an exciting evening on 18 May, when those in the know gather to see if they can pick up a work for a bargain price.
Artists from the UK and abroad now look forward to the Drawing Room fundraiser as a biennial commission and often their donated drawing initiates a new body of work:
“I see the Drawing Room auction as a kind of annual commission, and it’s nice to go back to an existing series of works (I mean the nudes). This year a whole new set of pieces came out of resuming work on the nudes“.
John Stezaker, 2011
For collectors it is also a useful introduction to the work of new artists:
It was here that I first saw Anna Barham’s drawing and was so intrigued, I commissioned her to make a work. The fundraiser is great way to gain exposure to young artists and forge relationships with them.’
Elisabetta Buonaiuto, collector
The artist David Austen has suggested that the Biennial Fundraiser is “unusually truly about art and artists and each other year generates a lot of goodwill. It also provides an insightful peep into the deeps of artists minds that only drawing really seems to catch hold of.’
VENUE INFORMATION AND DATES:
DRAWING 2011 BIENNIAL FUNDRAISER
Exhibition dates: 7 April to 18 May
Auction night: 18th May 2011, 6.30–8.30pm
Drawing Room
Tannery Arts
Brunswick Wharf
55 Laburnum Street
London, E2 8BD
020 7729 5333
mail@drawingroom.org.uk
