Drawing Prize 2021 nominations: Martin Dammann, Erik van Lieshout, Françoise Pétrovitch

The Daniel & Florence Guerlain Foundation has announced the names of the three nominated artists for the 2021 Drawing Prize.

Martin Dammann, German artist, born in 1965 in in Friedrichshafen am Bodensee he lives and works in Berlin. Studied at the University of the Arts in Berlin. Represented by the galleries In Situ-Fabienne Leclerc (Romainville) and Barbara Thumm (Berlin).

In his drawings and watercolours, Martin Dammann revisits both history and his own memories. He steeps himself in moments that fomented human destiny, until the virtuosity of his technique reaches beyond what the image seeks to tell us. Dammann usually works with photographic sources. The two world wars were a key subject for exploring the questions of German guilt and of gender, alongside clichés of perfect American families from the 1960s, discoveries from the colonial era and reminiscences from his personal archives. The meaning of the images is not so important, for what the artist is trying to understand is the hidden reality at the moment when the shutter was released….*

His works feature in the collections of the Florence and Daniel Guerlain Donation at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Dole and the Märkisches Museum in Witten.

Erik van Lieshout, Dutch artist, born in 1968 in Deurne, he lives and works in Rotterdam.. Studied at the Academy of Art and Design St. Joost and at De Ateliers. Represented by the galleries Guido W. Baudach (Berlin), Annet Gelink (Amsterdam), Krinzinger (Vienna) and Anton Kern (New York).

In his deliberately acerbic and engaged drawings and collages, Erik van Lieshout questions the finality of art and the very function of the artist, affirming that he or she does indeed have a role to play in our society. Some of his drawings flirt with caricature. He has always found everyday life inspiring and never tires of sketching the political world – figures such as Angela Merkel, Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Nicolas Sarkozy, for example. But he combines this with existential questions about love, among other things, and may wonder who takes the upper hand, the strategist or the human being. Images that he cuts out from newspapers are a first source. Then, in the studio, he takes up sheets of paper and covers them with his sometimes violent lines and marks….*

His works feature in the Florence and DanielGuerlain Collection and Donation to the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, and in the collections of the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum (Rotterdam), the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), and MoMA, New York.

Françoise Pétrovitch, self-taught French artist, born in 1964 in Paris, lives and works in Cachan. Represented by Galerie Semiose in Paris.

Revisiting the classics of art history, Françoise Pétrovitch develops her subjects in an oscillating movement between past and present, the explicit and the implicit, which highlights the spontaneity of her execution and the fluidity of her washes. Pétrovitch works a great deal in series. Lately, an island in her Série Noire paid homage to the Isle of the Dead, the famous painting by Arnold Böcklin, and to a park that she visited. This stood alongside the large portraits of young smokers, flowers and animals, all somewhat fantastical, in her corpus. The repeated themes make it possible to “bring forth a pleasure in making and doing.” The artist conceives small format pieces in pencil, while she works in ink and wash on large sheets of paper placed on the floor….*

Her work is part of the Florence and Daniel Guerlain Collection and Donation at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, and in the collections of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, the Musée Jenisch in Vevey and the Beaux-Arts museums in Rennes and Chambéry.

*extract from text by Marie maertens

An exhibition of works by the three shortlisted artists will be presented at the Salon du Dessin in spring 2021. The jury will meet during the Salon du Dessin and the laureate will be announced on the day of the vote.

The members of the jury are: Dominique Agostini (France), Doris Beyersdorf (Switzerland), Matthieu de Boisséson (France), Marcelo Roberto Ferro (Brazil), Christian Hausmaninger (Austria), Marlise Jozami (Argentina), Jean Louis Milin (France), and Florence and Daniel Guerlain.

About the Prize
Awarded for the first time in 2007 and biennial until 2009, the Prize honours artists who make any unique work on paper, using graphic means: crayon, charcoal, red chalk, ink, wash tint, gouache, watercolour, pastels and felt… including collages and wall drawings but excluding computer and mechanical processes. The Prize concerns artists for whom drawing on paper or cardboard is a significant part of their work. The nominated artists can be of French or foreign nationality on condition that they reside in France or have a privileged cultural link through institutional exhibitions.

The Prize’s endowment is 25,000 EUR: 15,000 EUR for the laureate and 5,000 EUR for each of the two other artists. A work by the winner is offered to a French institution by the Foundation.

The candidates are selected by a committee composed of the two founders, Daniel and Florence Guerlain, and of four members chosen for their competence in contemporary art. Following a working meeting with the artists, visits to studios and analysis, the committee selects three artists whose work is presented to a jury that changes with each prize and chooses the winner.

Created in 1996, the Daniel & Florence Guerlain Contemporary Art Foundation organized exhibitions in the family property for ten years, before Daniel and Florence Guerlain decided to devote the Foundation’s activities to the Contemporary Drawing Prize. 

The prize receives the support of “Le Cercle des Amis”, Banque Neuflize OBC, Guerlain, Artcurial, AXA, Artprice by ArtMarket.com, Voisin Consulting Life Sciences, Groupe Élysées Monceau, Groupe Pasteur Mutualité, Le Salon du Dessin, Les Beaux-Arts de Paris, Maison Champagne Ruinart, Vodka Beluga, Rova Caviar Madagascar, Château Seguin.

Past Laureates: 2020: Juan Uslé (Spain) / 2019: Claire Morgan (Ireland) / 2018: Mamma Andersson (Sweden) / 2017: Ciprian Muresan (Romania) / 2016: Cameron Jamie (United States) / 2015: Jockum Nordström (Sweden) / 2014: Tomasz Kowalski (Poland) / 2013: Susan Hefuna (Egypt, Germany) / 2012: Jorinde Voigt (Germany) / 2011: Marcel Van Eeden (Netherlands) / 2010: Catharina Van Eetvelde (Belgium) / 2009: Sandra Vasquez de la Horra (Chile) / 2007: Silvia Bächli (Switzerland) 

Contact: Daniel & Florence Guerlain Contemporary Art Foundation, T +33 (0)6 44 13 99 14 / FDG2 [​at​] wanadoo.fr