City Museum acquires painting by Turner Prize nominee

Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery’s permanent art collection has received a prestigious boost thanks to the acquisition of a new painting by current Turner Prize nominee, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.

To Tell Them Where It’s Got To (2013) has been purchased with a grant from the Contemporary Art Society and the support of London based Corvi-Mora Gallery. 

The painting shows a woman turning her face away from the viewer and is an excellent example of Yiadom-Boakye’s recent work, which often uses the approach of staged portraiture to depict fictitious black subjects in traditional art historical poses.

The painting has most recently been on display at prestigious international art exhibition, the Venice Biennale, and will be returned to the UK in the spring. Visitors to the City Museum and Art Gallery will be able to see it on display in the ‘Women in Art’ exhibition from 4 March to 12 April 2014.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye is a painter, poet and writer who was born in London in 1977 and studied at the Royal Academy, Falmouth College of Art and Central St Martins School of Art and Design, London. She has held a number of solo exhibitions in both London and New York and has participated in numerous group exhibitions in the USA, South Africa and Europe.

In 2012 she won the Future Generation Art Prize. This year, along with fellow artists Laure Prouvost, Tino Sehgal and David Shrigley she is nominated for the Turner Prize, widely considered to be Europe’s most important and prestigious award for the visual arts. The Prize will be presented by Derry~Londonderry, the UK’s first City of Culture, in partnership with Tate on Monday 2 December. The Prize was established in 1984 to recognise the work of the finest new talent in Britain’s contemporary art world and was named in honour of the famous nineteenth-century painter, J.M.W. Turner.

“We’re thrilled for Yiadom-Boakye on her Turner Prize nomination and will be keeping our fingers crossed for her when the winner is announced on 2 December,” said Deputy Leader, Councillor Peter Smith. “We’re also thrilled to have been able to acquire a work of art by such a successful artist and to continue the City Museum and Art Gallery’s connection with the Turner Prize.

“Over the last few years our exhibitions have featured 2012 winner Elizabeth Price, 2003 winner Grayson Perry, 1987 winner Richard Deacon, 1986 winners Gilbert and George and 1985 winner Howard Hodgkin, as well as many nominees. We also have works by 2003 nominee Anya Gallacio and 1991 nominee Ian Davenport in our collection. To have a work by a winner would be even better!”

For more information about the Turner Prize visit www.turnerprize.org

For more information about Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery and the Women in Art exhibition visit www.plymouthmuseum.gov.uk