The consequences of Covid 19 continued throughout 2021 and were still with us as the year drew to a close. The wellbeing of the UK, financial challenges and global uncertainties and challenges continue alongside the accelerating dangers of climate change.

Jerwood has had no choice but to meet these challenges and do its utmost to preserve its course and priorities within its chosen fields. We have therefore directed our support to young people in the arts and education who are committed, achieving excellence, and have an entrepreneurial outlook within their work.

On a wider scale we were able to make a major £1 million grant to support individuals, mainly freelancers in theatre and music, who were suffering the consequences of the pandemic and lockdowns.

Also realised during 2021 we were one of the principal supporters and funders of a new medical education centre in Liverpool established by the Royal College of Physicians at The Spine: a new 13 storey building of striking design. One of the building's major attributes is the two simulated clinical suites situated on the 11th floor. These will enable the College to teach, train and examine young physicians in the advancing of their education and qualifications. They will be of considerable value and will avoid being a diversionary activity in a hospital environment. We hope that both individuals and the NHS will reap great advantages.

These two major grant initiatives overshadowed, but did not diminish, smaller grants such as to Scherzo Ensemble, a new young artists opera company, and Tracing Movement Reboot, a training programme to enable dancers to retain their fitness. We have also supported charities including Stand Up to Cancer, Salvation Army and Barnardos through the use of our Royal Albert Hall box. 

Jerwood Collection opened its year-long residency at Harley Gallery, Nottinghamshire, in May; Jerwood Charity continued its programmes for early-career artists across the U.K. working in all artforms including the Live Work Fund and Jerwood Solo Presentations; Jerwood Space was finally able to reopen in September and has continued to recover its rehearsal strengths. 

Since John Jerwood died in 1991, Jerwood has channelled over £108 million in capital and revenue funding in support of the arts and education in the UK.  

The year-long Jerwood Collection residency at Harley Gallery, Nottinghamshire opened in May with A Curator's Choice selected by Jerwood Collection Director, Lara Wardle. Alongside 50 works from Jerwood Collection, a selection of audio recordings, borrowed from the British Library’s Artists’ Lives interviews, were available for visitors to listen to in an innovative dinner party display.

This exhibition was followed by Coast: Country: City, chosen by independent curator James Rawlin, which explored 20th and 21st century British artists' response to landscapes and city life. 

The third exhibition of the residency, Kindred Spirits, in partnership with Outside In, a national charity that aims to provide a platform for artists who face significant barriers in  the art world as a consquence of health, disability, social circumstance or isolation, opened in November. Five Outside In Artist Curators chose works from Jerwood Collection to be displayed alongside pieces from Outside In's Collection.

'This exhibition is the result of our first Curating Course, which has been designed to support a wider diversity of curators. It champions new voices and, in doing so, aims to break the traditional mould of organising and delivering exhibitions' - Marc Steene, Director, Outside In

Alongside the residency at Harley Gallery we also loaned St Rémy by Walter Richard Sickert RA to Walker Art Gallery's Sickert: A Life in Art exhibition (until 27 February 2022) and were pleased to extend our long-term loan of Crucifixion, painted in 1994 by Craigie Aitchision RA to Hereford Cathedral. 

In June Jerwood Collection joined Gallery Climate Coalition and, during the year, we undertook a carbon audit and are committed moving forwards to implement changes to reduce our carbon footprint and waste. Also we are looking at how to pack, store, and move Jerwood Collection works in future years in a carbon reduced way.

Images: Coast, Country, City photo courtesy of Harley Gallery and Alex Wilkinson Media;  A Curator's Choice photo courtesy of Harley Gallery; Crucifixion by Craigie Aitchison RA hanging at Hereford Cathedral photo courtesy Mike Fear.

The last 12 months have been anything other than a typical year.  Emerging from the winter gloom of Lockdown 2, we were, as ever, as flexible and pragmatic as possible in our approach to utilising the building as best we could under the restrictions imposed.  We were, briefly, a depot for NHS blood banks, a film set for the new Chris Pine thriller and a potential site for a vaccination centre before tentatively opening in April for Guildhall School of Music and Drama to rehearse two of their final year shows - Anne Washburn’s Mr Burns, directed by Chelsea Walker, and Bola Agbaje’s Gone Too Far! directed by former JMK Emerging Director winner Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu.

Whilst theatres were still dark, we were able to support two initiatives in a covid-safe fashion with our revised capacities under Stage 2 restrictions.  The first of these was a course devised by Ed Bennett, Iqbal Khan and Benet Brandreth to explore the use of rhetoric in Shakespeare’s speeches and its application in contemporary settings, using professional actors and invited local school children. We were also pleased to welcome back Stuart Winter, James McKeown and Natasha Volley for the return of their Tracing Movement Reboot series of classes.  Reboot ran a series of 23 free classes in Space 7, benefitting over 160 professional dancers who had been unable to train over lockdown.

Image: Tracing Movement Reboot photo credit Robin Kent Photography