Prize Winners at the 24th Annual Exhibition
At the Society of Equestrian Artists' 24th Annual Exhibition,this years' awards were presented to the winners in the presence of
the Rt Hon the Lord Oaksey,President of the Society,and Dick Francis CBE,who opened the Private View of the exhibition,at
the Mall Galleries,The Mall,London SW1.Planning is already in hand for 2004,when the Society of Equestrian Artists celebrates
its 25th Anniversary.
British Sporting Art Trust prizes were presented by Dr.Christopher Davenport-Jones,Chairman British Sporting Art Trust
I would like to offer our congratulations to the winners and express my thanks and appreciation to all who have helped with the
mounting of this Exhibition.My particular gratitude goes to the Sponsors,to Lord Oaksey the new President of our Society and to Dick
Francis,our Guest of Honour.Mrs Anthony Lyle Skyrme
Caro and the Executive are delighted to welcome Lord Oaksey as our new President.
New President for S.E.A.
Annual Exhibition 2003
Monday 1st September to Sunday 7th September
The Mall Galleries, London SW1
THE TWENTY FOURTH ANNUAL EXHIBITION
took place this year at the Mall Galleries and during
the six days attracted over a thousand visitors.On the
evening of the Private View some 500 guests enjoyed
some amusing repartee from our new President Lord
Oaksey followed closely by Dick Francis.Great cheers
and rapturous applause followed speeches by both
these great men and Lord Oaksey's wit and humour
had everyone "in stitches".We should count ourselves
very fortunate indeed to have been honoured with
such a brilliant new President.Indeed,we have always
known that Peter Fenwick would be a hard act to
follow and in Lord Oaksey we have someone cut from
the same cloth.
The universal opinion seems to have been that standards were up
again this year and in spite of the poor state of the art market at
present,sales were still very good right up to the very last hour.In
fact a lady came puffing up to the sales desk as things were being
taken down and asked me if it was too late to buy a painting! Well,
as you all know,as far as I am concerned there is no such thing as
"too late" if that piece of work is still in the gallery!
Every year we seem to have more and more awards and prizes
and I began to wonder if I ought to accept any more generous
offers from prize and award sponsors! Sadly however,the Bank of
Ireland now feel it is time to stand down as a major sponsor after
five years.They have been very generous to our Society and leave
us in very good heart.Our grateful thanks go with Mr.Holden
and Mr.Nolan who have been great support to us in the past five
years while we have been growing and lifting our profile to the
point where we are now internationally acknowledged as a
leading equestrian art organisation.
As many of you will appreciate there is a great deal of hard work
which goes on behind the scenes.As always there are those who
really put their back into this event,the vast amount of
paperwork handled by Susan Mills in such an efficient way on
handing in day is simply incredible.I can honestly say that without
Susan we simply could not organise the paperwork for exhibition
and we owe her a huge vote of thanks.Susan has come up with
some excellent suggestions to simplify the operation for next
year.
Our new secretary,Margaret Curtis has now begun to really get
her hands on the reins and has been a wonderful help and has
handled many of the problems cheerfully and willingly over the
past month.It really has been a "Baptism of Fire" for Margaret
who had to take over only weeks before the exhibition.
Sometimes people forget that the secretary is dealing with
hundreds of enquiries every week and of course Margaret had
no experience of many of the things with which she was having
to deal in the first few weeks.
It is a vast amount to take in and I know from my own six months
as Chairman designate,that much of what Philip Gibson told me
was rather difficult to grasp or implement until one got to know
the personalities involved and the modus operandi with which
the Society had evolved over twenty years.Every year we learn
something and hope to get it running more smoothly for the
next year ...at least that is the plan...so watch this space!
Bruce and Sian Wynn,Glynis Mills,Barry Peckham,Leigh Parry,Roy
Miller,Neil Cawthorne,Martin Williams,Liz Calthorpe,Lois Sharp,
Jim Power,John Campbell,Gale Rosethorne,Cathy McGleenan,
Katy Sodeau,Cathy Spearing and Cyril Winfield worked their
socks off on Handing In Day and I would like to thank them on
behalf of everyone who took part in this exhibition.
It has been a super year with even more regional workshops and
exhibitions and we now begin to prepare for our Silver Jubilee
with a great opportunity to show the world what we can
produce.I hope you will all give us some suitably special and
exciting work to show in 2004 for our Silver Jubilee Exhibition.
Caro Skyrme
N.B.Photographs of the Private View and Awards Ceremony available
from Gill Shaw.See website.
