• The seismic shocks of the Covid-19 pandemic were felt across the world and through all strata of society. Lockdowns closed galleries and theatres and the arts have been affected and damaged by venue closures and a catastrophic loss of revenue.

    The home working period of the first UK lockdown in March forced the Foundation to consider the economics of maintaining a London office and after full consideration it was regretfully decided to close the office. This has required a totally changed way of working and an assessment of what steps should be taken to continue our role. 

    In spite of all the many challenges that 2020 presented, the different Jerwood organisations proved how resilient and entrepreneurial they were, adapting to home working, the furlough schemes and responding directly to the changed world of work.

     Alan Grieve CBE

    Chairman, Jerwood Foundation
  • Jerwood Foundation Jerwood Foundation Jerwood Foundation

    Jerwood Foundation

    Capital Projects 

    Royal College of Physicians, Liverpool

    We confirmed a second major capital grant to the Royal College of Physicians, London to support the establishment of a second Medical Educational Centre in Liverpool. This landmark building, to be known as The Spine will be opened during spring 2021 and we will report fully on its establishment in our 2021 Review.

    Digital Suite for DanceEast at the Jerwood DanceHouse, Ipswich

    During the year, the Foundation made a grant of £60,000 to DanceEast to support their work to future-proof the iconic Jerwood DanceHouse through the creation of a digital suite. This facility will enable DanceEast to offer dance artists a ‘high end’ research and development space to create new work for digital distribution and provide a new resource for the East of England and beyond. The funding reaffirms our longstanding relationship with DanceEast and will secure the organisation’s position at the heart of developments in digital dance innovation in the UK.

    Jerwood Printmaking Today Prize 

    Sophie Charalambous won the Jerwood Printmaking Today Prize 2020.

    Images: Artist's Impression of The Spine, Liverpool, Courtesy Royal College of Physicians; Green Screen Studio at DanceEast, Photo of Solstice, choreographed by Kwesi Johnson. Dancer Rosie May. Photo by Chris Nash, Courtesy DanceEast; Sophie Charalambous, Comings and Goings, monoprint on paper, 2019,  © the artist, Courtesy Rebecca Hossack Gallery.
     

  • Jerwood Collection

         Clare Woods (b.1972), Saturday Wait, 2019 Courtesy the artist and Cristea Roberts, London
  • On Display On Display

    On Display

    Jerwood Collection’s 2020 opening exhibition Cornwall as Crucible: Modernity and Internationalism in Mid-Century Britain, at the Barber Institute in Birmingham showcased some of our key works, alongside some recent acquisitions. Although the exhibition closed in line with national restrictions at the end of March, with hindsight we were fortunate that the exhibition was open for 4 full weeks. Inspired by the Barber’s exceptional sculpture by Naum Gabo, the exhibition was enhanced with audio recordings borrowed from the British Library’s treasure trove of Artists’ Lives recordings and also with works borrowed from Birmingham University’s collection.

    Hospitals and care settings were in the forefront of many people’s minds during the year and it was particularly timely to see our planned partnership with national charity, Paintings in Hospitals come to fruition with Colour in Motion, a special loan exhibition of Ian Davenport’s work at Addenbroke’s Hospital in Cambridge. This exhibition includes 4 etchings, on loan from Jerwood Collection, hung alongside works from Paintings in Hospitals Collection, and has been specifically designed to enhance the care environment and improve patient and staff wellbeing.

    During the year we loaned works to Royal West of England Academy’s St Ives: Movements in Art and Life and Dulwich Picture Gallery’s major British Surrealism show, although both sadly had shorter than planned lifespans.

     Images: Cornwall as Crucible, image Courtesy of The Barber Institute of Fine Arts; St Ives: Movements in Art and Life, Royal West of England Academy, photo: Lisa Whiting.

  • This clip, which features two works by Roger Hilton (Bust of a Woman with Serpents, 1973 and Boat, 1974) loaned from Jerwood Collection, is from a film created by Royal West of England Academy for their St Ives exhibition. The exhibition was curated by Rachel Rose Smith and the film is narrated by Nathalie Levi, Head of Programme, Curator of Exhibtions.

    Hilton was bed bound from 1972 but continued to work recumbent and on a small scale in pencil and gouache ... Boat is an example of this, still full of joie de vivre but with much more free form mark making.

    Watch the 15 minute film here.

     
  • Acquisitions Acquisitions Acquisitions Acquisitions

    Acquisitions

    We were pleased to continue to acquire works for the Jerwood Collection during 2020, including an oil by contemporary artist Clare Woods. Other acquisitions focused on building our collection of prints by contemporary artists, including: Eileen Cooper RA, Michael Armitage, Bridget Riley and Yinka Shonibare RA.

    Lara Wardle, Director

     

    Eileen Cooper RA (b.1953), Kiss, 2020, Jerwood Collection, (c) Eileen Cooper/Bridgeman Images
    Images: Clare Woods (b.1972), Saturday Wait, 2019. Jerwood Collection. Courtesy the artist and Cristea Roberts, London,  Michael Armitage (b. 1984) Dream and Refuge, 2020, Jerwood Collection, © Michael Armitage. Photo © White Cube (Theo Christelis), Bridget Riley CBE (b.1931), Sonnet, 2016 Jerwood Collection. Courtesy the artist and Cristea Roberts, London, Yinka Shonibare CBE (RA) (b.1962) Mayflower, All Flowers, 2020. Jerwood Collection, Courtesy Yinka Shonibare CBE (RA) and Cristea Roberts Gallery, London

  • Jerwood Arts

         Silvia Rosi, Self Portrait of my Mother, Self Portrait of my Father, 2020. Jerwood Photoworks Awards 2020 supported by Jerwood Arts and Photoworks. Installation view at Jerwood Space. Photo: Anna Arca.
  • This has been a devastating year for the arts. To support artists and organisations smitten by this new reality, we...
    To accompany the launch of Jerwood/FVU Awards: Hindsight exhibition, we produced our first online exhibition with over 10 hours of interviews, critical writing and additional content exploring the works. Explore it here.

    This has been a devastating year for the arts. To support artists and organisations smitten by this new reality, we have sharpened our focus on our founding values of ‘responsible, independent and imaginative’ funding. We’ve continued to listen to artists and used our expertise to navigate and influence in a year of monumental change.

    A year of collaboration

    We have brought 50 new Host organisations onboard for the Weston Jerwood Creative Bursaries programme. Partnerships with Art Fund and Aberdeen Art Gallery have amplified the Jerwood Art Fund Makers Open 2021, and Leeds Art Gallery have joined us for the next edition of Jerwood/FVU Awards. The Live Work Fund has brought us together with Wolfson Foundation, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and The Linbury Trust in response to Covid-19. This £660k fund goes beyond hardship funding, with 33 awards of £20k each that will enable artists transform their practice and thrive again.
  • A year of learning and change Following a hugely successful second edition of the Jerwood/Photoworks Awards in the first part...
    The Poetry Table: How the Arts Saved Our Lockdown, 2020. Online event with Hafsah Aneela Bashir, Anthony Joseph and Yomi Ṣode. Part of the Jerwood Compton Poetry Takeover.

    A year of learning and change

    Following a hugely successful second edition of the Jerwood/Photoworks Awards in the first part of the year, we have worked hard to adapt and reschedule our annual exhibition and events programme. The breadth of our experience has enabled us to support funded organisations to recalibrate their artist development programmes. We were also able to be more flexible with our Jerwood Bursaries for individuals.

    We were thrilled to be able to open the postponed Jerwood/FVU Awards: Hindsight in October. With the support of the team at Jerwood Space we could celebrate major new commissions by Guy Oliver and Reman Sedani.

    We have embraced being able to deliver our events programme online, and hugely valued reaching new audiences. Our Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship Takeover celebrated the works of Hafsah Aneela Bashir, Anthony Joseph and Yomi Sode, while live Q&A events to support new applicants went viral on YouTube.

    Our trustees and staff team have also changed this year. After 15 years of committed service, Tim Eyles handed the Chairmanship to Rupert Tyler, long time trustee and Head of the Finance and Investment Committee. Trustees Vanessa Engle and Philippa Hogan-Hern also stepped down in the year. We would like to thank them for their tireless enthusiasm, dedication and support.

    We are proud of how we have adapted, and helped others to adapt - inspired by the creative resilience of the artists and arts organisations throughout the UK. The successes of 2020 renew our confidence in our ability to change and continue to give our support to the full panoply of the arts.

    Lilli Geissendorfer, Director

    Rupert Tyler, Chairman
  • On 20th October, the first 20 of 50 new jobs at leading arts and cultural organisations went live with the...

    On 20th October, the first 20 of 50 new jobs at leading arts and cultural organisations went live with the launch of the Weston Jerwood Creative Bursary programme. By taking part in this programme, these arts and cultural organisations are committing to improving socio-economic diversity across the UK through hosting a Fellowship and coming together with their peers to take part in an intensive organisational development programme. Find out more here.

  • Jerwood Space

         We were pleased to champion initiatives such as Stuart Winter’s Tracing Movement Reboot, which we subsidised to enable over 90 dancers whose training had been interrupted by the pandemic to receive free lessons and associated support.
    Photo: Robin Kent @robinkent.photography. Featured: Seren Williams, Jack Butterworth
  • 2020 was a year that started with much theatrical promise. Rehearsals for Back to the Future and Pretty Woman sat...
    Sylvan Oswald’s Trainers for The Gate theatre,  L-R  Nando Messias, Nicki Hobday and Director Hester Chillingworth- also a Jerwood New Playwright 2020. Photo: Alex Harvey-Brown.

    2020 was a year that started with much theatrical promise.  Rehearsals for Back to the Future and Pretty Woman sat alongside Verdi’s Luisa Miller, directed by Barbora Horakova for ENO, followed immediately by Joe Hill-Gibbins version of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, which just managed to open to excellent reviews before the theatres closed.

    We rehearsed, amongst many others, Simon Evans’ production of Will Eno’s The Realistic Joneses; Mona Khashoggi’s Umm Kulthum and The Golden Era; Paul Minx’ The Dog Walker for Jermyn Street Theatre, directed by Harry Burton and we were pleased to squeeze in a full punk band for Lightweight Disposable Product for Wildcard Theatre, and played at The Vaults Festival: all managed to hit the stage in some form. 

    Vicky Moran’s new play No Sweat for The Pleasance Theatre also rehearsed with us, a series of real life stories from the homeless LGBTQ community, and Augmented, directed by Rachel Bagshaw and written and performed by Sophie Woolley, managed most of its tour before falling foul of the pandemic.

    In March, we lost more than 30 productions overnight.

     

     
  • We remained closed for six months during which time we tried to find a variety of different ways to make...
    The Gentlemen Baristas, our café for the past three years and suffering like the rest of the hospitality industry, were able to positively affect lives through raising £20,000 for homeless charity TAP London.

     

    We remained closed for six months during which time we tried to find a variety of different ways to make use of the building.  Amongst other options, we were in contact with a local secondary school to run as an overspill, and had agreed the detail before a change in policy on social distancing in education.  All the work the staff put in over that period meant we were Covid-compliant when we were finally able to re-open, with new limits on all the spaces, one way systems around the building, additional cleans, sanitiser gel points and additional safety measures.  

    We’re hoping that the creativity and resilience of the industry wins through and the shows that were unable to happen in 2020 manage to find a home with us in 2021.

    Peter Wilkinson, Director

    Chris Cotton, Chairman