The winner of the first Hepworth Prize for Sculpture says she is sharing the £30,000 award with her fellow nominees. Helen Marten from Macclesfield received the prize from Burberry fashion boss Christopher Bailey at a ceremony at the Hepworth Wakefield gallery. She went on to win the Turner Prize of £25,000 which she says she will also share with fellow contenders.
The Hepworth Prize was created to celebrate the gallery’s fifth anniversary during 2016. It is open to any British or UK-based artist who has made a significant contribution to contemporary sculpture.
Marten said after accepting the Hepworth Prize art was ‘deeply subjective’. She added during a radio interview: ‘We should not be asserting a hierarchy in saying this person is a winner above and beyond anybody else.’ She added: ‘The context of the world’s political landscape is changing so drastically. Amidst that, the art world has a responsibility to uphold an umbrella of egalitarianism and democracy and openness.’
Organisers of the Hepworth Prize described Marten’s decision to split the money between the artists as ‘a gracious and generous suggestion’.
The prize is named after Barbara Hepworth, one of Britain’s greatest sculptors and arguably its most celebrated female artist, who was born and brought up in Wakefield. The Hepworth Wakefield has the largest number of works by the artist on permanent display anywhere in the UK.
How Helen Marten from Macclesfield won the two most prestigious prizes in the art world
