The Wakelin family: supporting contemporary artists for 25 years

Andrea Powell, Exhibitions Assistant, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery

7 March 2025 | Minute read

We at Glynn Vivian Art Gallery were delighted to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Wakelin Award, with a retrospective exhibition that brought together work by all past winners.  

What is the Wakelin Award?  

Founded in memory of Swansea-based artists, Richard and Rosemary Wakelin, the annual award is given to an artist living and working in Wales, whose work is purchased for the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery’s Permanent Collection. 

Previous award winners include Robert Harding, David Tress, Pete Davis, Craig Wood, David Garner, Tim Davies, Dick Chappell, Brendan Stuart Burns, Anthony Shapland, Catrin Webster, Jonathan Anderson, Meri Wells, David Cushway, Helen Sear, Clare Woods, Alexander Duncan, Philip Eglin, Richard Billingham, Anya Paintsil, Cinzia Mutigli and Ingrid Murphy. 

Selected artworks in this exhibition were loaned from Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales, as part of CELF the national contemporary art gallery for Wales.

Why is the Wakelin Award so important for artists? 

We chatted to some previous winners to understand what the award meant to them. Robert Harding is an artist who has a strong relationship with Swansea. He told us:

“I moved to Swansea in 1981. Almost immediately I became a member of AADW (Association of Artists and Designers of Wales) and thus met Richard (Dick) and Rosemary Wakelin, and probably most of the artists based in Swansea at the time. In 1986 I succeeded Dick as Treasurer of the Swansea Branch of AADW and held this post until I left Swansea in 1989. During my eight years in Swansea, I exhibited in many different places in Wales and England, including regularly at the Swansea Arts Workshop (now Mission Gallery) and in two major exhibitions at the Glynn Vivian (Seven Sculptors Working in Wales, 1986, and The Art of Lego, 1988-89).

Although I left Swansea at the end of the 1980s, I kept in touch and was involved in a number of exhibitions in the city. At the Glynn Vivian this included Insight (an exhibition for the visually impaired) in 1991 and On and Off the Level (2 artist exhibition) in 1994. At Mission Gallery I exhibited in Word Overall in 1995. I also organised and curated Meltdown in 2009 plus the related performance iron pour entitled Melt on 15 October at the National Waterfront Museum. Indeed, at the end of last year I brought the touring 56 Group Wales At Cross Purposes exhibition to Elysium.

Rocking Bowl was one of the first metal sculptural vessels that I made. It was exhibited at the National Eisteddfod in Anglesey in 1999 and in the same year at an exhibition entitled Ironwill at the Crescent Arts Workshop in Scarborough. Another of my metal vessels in that latter exhibition elicited a memorable comment in the visitors book: ‘why should I pay £500 for a glorified wok’!

The vessels I made were a by-product of my sculptural practice and frequently exhibited symmetrical properties that were not a feature of my sculpture. I found the process of making vessels both relaxing and a way of enabling initial conversations with others about the nature of objects. They also made me question the whole sense of division between craft and fine art. This led me to write some articles on the subject and curate an exhibition for Llantarnam Grange in 2003 entitled Fine to Functional, a celebration of work by 14 artists who also made ‘functional’ objects.

I still make metal sculptural vessels.

Soft Option, a small sculpture, is typical of a lot of my work. It is made of contrasting elements – plastic (flexible domestic vacuum hose) & steel (rigid industrial/constructional section); it is wall-mounted with hidden fixings and avoids a vertical or horizontal axis of symmetry. There are two factors that influenced its title: The ends of the angle iron are the ‘soft ends’ that occur as the lengths are rolled in the steelworks – these are usually cut off before the lengths are transported to the stockholders. I made the sculpture not long after my father died and he, being a typical engineer, thought a career in sculpture was a ‘soft option’!"

Speaking on what the Wakelin Award means to him, he said, “Besides the fact that all artists like to be recognised for their work, the financial reward is always useful. It is also good to have work in public collections which in turn encourages sales to individuals.

The Wakelin Award cemented my long-term relationship with Swansea and I have fond memories of the party that the Friends of the Glynn Vivian organised for me at the time of the Award."

Tim Davies is an artist who lives and works in Swansea.

“I was delighted to receive the Wakelin Award in 2005.” Tim Davies told us. “The timing couldn’t have been better. During that particular period, I had been working on various ideas about how culturally we reflect upon those killed in conflict (particularly in the twentieth century) and the related commemorations via Remembrance Day services, monuments and statuary.

At the time of my shortlist for the award I had just started collecting images of memorials and manipulating their digitally reprinted surfaces. Using graphite, I scored repeatedly across them vertically, horizontally and diagonally, an act not of irreverence but certainly an expressive veiling in an attempt to re-represent a subject for closer scrutiny (the anthropologist Joy Hendry had essayed such ideas).

The Parisian piece, which was the start of the European Drawings series, was nervous on my studio wall when the selector for that year, Ann Jones, paid a visit. This was selected as well as a wind-shaken video of my installation of Flags over Solva from 1992. Both pieces remain important for me as they informed different strands of my subsequent practice. The Cadet pieces which grew out of European Drawings formed a central element of my Venice exhibition representing Wales in 2011, and much of my following and current text/spoken word pieces, such as Distant Views, Figures and Portraits have their roots in Flags from all those years before. So, receiving the Wakelin Award, seeing my work on the walls and in the collection of the Glynn Vivian Gallery gave me a boost, a confidence to continue, come what may.

I took this as a lesson when I became a selector myself, that the impact of recognition through a timely award or prize on a burgeoning practice can be crucial for encouragement. It’s a kind of critical appreciation that far outweighs a sale of work – as very nice as that is!

So, I took the selector role very seriously and made a shortlist of three emerging talents, all equally worthy candidates, and with the help of the Wakelin family representatives and the Glynn Vivian, came to a decision. A bonus to this process was an introduction of the shortlisted artists to the panel which resulted in invitations to partake in other exhibitions apart from the award, both for the eventual winner and other short-listed artists.

Personally, I’d like to thank the Wakelin family for generously supporting the artists so far awarded but importantly, as a purchase award, for also augmenting the Glynn Vivian collection.”

How is it awarded?

“When I became a selector for the Wakelin Prize in 2011 I already knew it was a badge of excellence in contemporary Welsh art.” Andrew Green, one of the selectors told us. “I took the job seriously. I gathered a longlist, and then a shortlist, of artists I thought worth investigating. I tracked down the artists to talk about their work. I discussed the shortlist with representatives of the Glynn Vivian and the Friends, and Peter Wakelin, and together we talked our way towards awarding the prize to Meri Wells.

Some already knew Meri for her otherworldly ceramic creatures. But she’d never received enough recognition or prominence in public collections. This was exactly what the Wakelin was for. We visited Meri’s studio near Machynlleth to choose items for the Glynn Viv. The award ceremony was held in the National Library of Wales. Around 150 people gathered to watch Meri receive the Prize and a large bunch of flowers: a grand, joyful occasion.

What did I learn from the experience? First, that art awards do matter. Not because art has to be competitive, but because artists, especially those who don’t seek fame for themselves, need to have their work seen and talked about.

Artists also need to leave an imprint on the world, to know that their creations will survive. The fact that the Wakelin Prize allows the purchase of works for the Glynn Vivian’s collection is crucial. It means they’re preserved, documented, and shown, to ourselves and future generations.

Awards demonstrate that art matters. In an age when the arts receive declining public support and are neglected in schools, they remind us that creators and what they make are an essential part of feeling, and being, human.

Finally, I learned how much we have to thank the Wakelin family for their generous support, over quarter of a century, for artists in Swansea and Wales.”

Dr Peter Wakelin, the Wakelins’ son, said: “When we set up the Award after my mother died in 1998, we thought it would be something our parents would have enjoyed because of their love of the Glynn Vivian, and it would last for a few years. We never guessed that the scheme would continue to be so worthwhile for a quarter of a century. It’s fantastic to look back at all the artists the Award has supported in that time and the wealth of works that have been added to the Glynn Vivian collection to be enjoyed by the people of Swansea.”

Louise Burston, Chair of the Friends of the Glynn Vivian, recognises how important the Award is for Glynn Vivian, “The Friends are very pleased to be involved with such a prestigious award. It is heartening to be able to support Welsh artists and contribute towards the gallery’s contemporary collection of art, plus it’s always fascinating to see whose work the nominated selector will choose. Over the years the award has gone to a splendidly diverse selection of artists from different disciplines and at different stages in their careers.” 

Karen MacKinnon, Curator, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, told us that: “The Wakelin Award has enabled the gallery for the past 25 years to acquire wonderful works for its permanent collection. This unique partnership between the Wakelin family and the Friends of the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery is very special in the support it offers the gallery, artists in Wales and the works it enables us to share with audiences and communities. This exhibition is a celebration of what the award has achieved over so many years.” 

The Award is administered and supported by the Friends of the Glynn Vivian, together with donations in memory of Richard and Rosemary Wakelin. 

CYNFAS