You may have seen on our social media last month that The Burton was shortlisted for the Hallett Independent Acquisitions Award.
This prestigious prize awards £8,000 to a UK museum or gallery to acquire prints at the London Original Print Fair 2025 for their collection. Previous winners include the Holburne Museum in Bath, Imperial Health Charity in London, Hatton Gallery in Newcastle and The Atkinson in Southport.
Prints have always played an important part in the permanent collection at The Burton, from the intricate etchings and engravings in our founding gift from Hubert Coop to the striking work of modern pioneers such as Gillian Ayres, Hilary Paynter and Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. Our exhibition and workshop programme celebrates print as a skilful and vibrant artistic medium. Recent exhibitions have included print work by internationally renowned artists Yinka Shonibare CBE, Paula Rego, Antony Gormley and Patrick Heron, as well as collaborations with the prestigious Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers.
Alongside the two other shortlisted organisations – The University of Reading Art Collection and The Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum in Bournemouth – our Director Harriet travelled up to Somerset House in London on Thursday 20 March to hear the winner announced at the preview of London Original Print Fair 2025. The prize was awarded to The Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum.
While it was disappointing not to win the award this year, The Burton was thrilled to be recognised by the judges and to signal our ambitions to bring important contemporary print work to one of North Devon’s most important collections.
The Burton’s Director Harriet Cooper says: “We are thrilled to be shortlisted for the Hallett Independent Acquisitions Award 2025 which has given us the opportunity to explore some of the most exciting printmaking today at this years’ London Original Print Fair. As we near our 75th birthday, we are excited to look for opportunities like this to bring contemporary acquisitions into The Burton’s collection – creating new conversations with our historic collections and broadening the diversity of voices that the collection represents.”
The award judges were: Christopher Le Brun (artist and former President, The Royal Academy of Arts), Rhoda Eitel Porter (Editor, Print Quarterly), Clare Pardy (Associate Director, Hallett Independent), and Helen Rosslyn (Director, London Original Print Fair).
Image above: The shortlist announcement, featuring Cornelia Parker, Fox Talbot’s Articles of Glass (all that are left), 2017. Courtesy Cristea Roberts
