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The Mansfield-Ruddock Art Prize: supporting new talent and creating a contemporary art collection at College
Tess McCormick Development Director
Now in its fourth year, the Mansfield-Ruddock Art Prize, an exciting collaboration between Mansfield and the Ruskin School of Art, has become an important annual fixture at the College.
This prestigious purchase Prize is awarded to an undergraduate and a graduate student from the Ruskin School each year, with winners selected by a distinguished panel of judges, and the winning work entering a new collection of contemporary art at Mansfield.
Established by alumnus Sir Paul Ruddock (Jurisprudence, 1977) and generously supported by the Ruddock Foundation for the Arts, the Prize aims to encourage the whole academic community at Mansfield to engage with contemporary art, as well as providing important support, profile and networks for talented artists graduating from the Ruskin.
Commenting on the motivation behind the project, Sir Paul explained:
‘I was inspired to establish this Prize by my own experience as an undergraduate at Mansfield in the 1970s when I would go almost every week to both the Museum of Modern Art and the Ashmolean Museum, which fed a lifelong love of the arts. I feel, as does Helen [Mountfield], that students should be exposed in their everyday lives to the best of what Oxford artists are creating.’
Judges of the Prize to date include: Rana Begum, Amanda Levete, Adam Lowe, Yana Peel, Marc Quinn, Victoria Siddall, Matthew Slotover, Stephanie Straine, and Edmund de Waal.
Winning works from the last two years are now on show in a dedicated space at College at the bottom of the Library staircase, opposite the MCR. There you will see works by recent winners: Bunmi Agusto (MFA, 2023), Paige Diedrick-Edwards (BFA, 2023), Joy Labinjo (BFA, 2022), Saba Qizilbash (MFA, 2022), and Eliza Owen (BFA, 2022).
Mansfield also hosts an annual event to celebrate the Prize, offering an opportunity to hear from the artists – often in discussion with one of the judges.
To find out more visit: https://www.mansfield.ox.ac.uk/news/mansfield-ruddock-art-prizewinners-2023.
