The John Moores Painting Prize with Alexei Sayle

JOHN MOORES PAINTING PRIZE FKR Z671H/01 BRD000000

Many, many years ago, I left Liverpool from this very station

to enrol at the Chelsea School of Art in London,

and what inspired me to become a painter was the Walker Art Gallery

and one of the city's greatest ever cultural achievements -

The John Moores Painting Prize.

Put together all the names

and art movements represented by John Moores winners and you've

pretty much got the story of the best of post-war British painting.

David Hockney won the top prize,

Peter Blake won a junior prize, Howard Hodgkin came second twice,

Bridget Riley won a pink fluffy elephant...

Well, actually, she won 100 quid.

But who will join that illustrious company this year

and become a future art star?

'I'm following this year's competition, meeting all the

'shortlisted artists and speaking to some famous art world figures,

'before we find out who joins

'the pantheon of John Moores prize winners.

'So, if you want to know why painting is not dead,

'not even vaguely poorly, watch this film.'

In 1971, when I got on that crowded train to London,

Liverpool was at rock bottom,

but I was certain I would become the most celebrated painter

of my generation -

I'm mean, look at the quality of the work I was producing at the time...

But I fell out of love with painting,

and became the world's first fat, angry, balding,

tight-suited, Liverpudlian, Marxist-Jewish comedian, instead.

Shut up!

Meanwhile, Liverpool was being regenerated by art,

and I've been wondering what I've missed.

Today, the arts add £85 million per year to Liverpool's economy,

and you could say John Moores kicked it all off.

He was a post office messenger boy, forced to work in conditions

as cramped and devoid of world-class British painting as these.

Undaunted, he went on to create the Littlewoods pools, catalogue

and retail empire, and as a very rich man, he developed

a love of painting. And from that grew the John Moores Painting Prize.

My heroes are Cezanne, Van Gogh and Matisse, etc...

As a child of communist parents, I should have hated him,

and in fact my mum actually worked for Littlewoods Pools,

and somehow we couldn't hate a man

who sold his Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow in an act of solidarity

for his workers, but kept his chauffeur

to drive him around in a Mini Metro, because he didn't want to sack him.

When John Moores founded his prize, in 1957,

he wrote a letter to the Times which stated that he felt

the decline in the quality of British art galleries was due to

"the concentration of arts shows, art criticism and the like

"being in London." He wanted the biggest,

best, most inclusive British art prize to be held in Liverpool.

And to be held here, at the Walker Art Gallery.

In my first week at Chelsea School of Art,

we had an art history lecture,

and the lecturer put up a slide of a Van Gogh painting,

and a girl in my class said,

"Oh, I know that, it's in the hall of our flat in Rome."

And I thought, bloody hell, it's not even in the living room,

it's in the hall where they hang the coats.

'Now, obviously, most of us can't live surrounded by Van Goghs.

'But this was my version of that.

'It's where I learned to appreciate great art, like the Holbein

'and the Rembrandt, and also to enjoy the bad stuff,

'like When Did You Last See Your Father?'

It's terrible!

I suppose it's typical of Liverpool that one of the biggest events

in the social and artistic calendar

should have been a prize for contemporary art.

The competition is anonymous and open to anyone.

Over 2,500 painters sent in their work,

and these were whittled down by a jury of leading contemporary artists

and the Royal Academy's Tim Marlow.

The 50 paintings they've chosen to be exhibited

are going up on the walls today.

Now, it's widely believed that the conceptualist mafia,

with their unmade beds and pickled sharks,

snuffed out painting years ago,

but the vitality of the stuff on show here

makes a mockery of that notion.

That idea that it's died is a nonsense, it's still resilient.

I'm not sure it even needs defending any more.

Tim Marlow's in charge of the hang,

and, as the artists seem to have painted on every surface

known to man this year, it's going to be tricky.

There's a particular problem with this one, painted on a crisp packet.

It's called 80 Calories. It's fabulous.

It is. Do you know, I thought it was a vast, epic painting,

then when you see it in the flesh it's a complete surprise.

Do you know why it's painted on a crisp packet?

No! I tell you what though - it's a bastard to hang, this one.

I know, where are you going to put it?

'Where else in the world would a painting on a crisp packet

'hang in the same room as a picture such as this?'

This is fabulous, lovely.

Lovely wouldn't be my description. ALEXEI CACKLES

You see, I see the raw beauty in these things.

I see this as lovely.

This must be to do with contemporary conflict,

with innocent victims of war.

Do you feel manipulated when you look at this? I do, slightly.

That's not necessarily a bad thing.

Whichever of these paintings wins,

it will join some of Britain's greatest ever works of art

in the permanent exhibition

of John Moores first prize winners at the Walker.

In the art world, a place here is premium real estate.

The first-ever prize-winner is here,

Jack Smith's Creation and Crucifixion,

and Mary Martin's Cross.

She came joint first with Richard Hamilton,

but died before getting the prize.

Peter Doig won, so did Peter Davies,

with the controversial Superstar ***

And Sarah Pickstone's 2012 winner is exquisite.

No less exquisite is Peter Getting Out Of Nick's Pool,

by David Hockney, which John Moores actually hated.

Why did this win the first prize?

After accepting his £1,500 cheque from John Moores,

Hockney used the money to send his mum and dad on holiday.

But not all the winners were as nice.

Roger Hilton, who won in 1963, was a veritable enfant terrible.

After aiming a high kick at his own painting,

he said all the other painters in the show were crap, which is harsh,

considering Bridget Riley and RB Kitaj were amongst the runners-up.

Then he violently accused Alderman Jack Braddock of wearing a wig!

Later that night, Braddock died!

What Hilton didn't know was he'd just offed one of the most

powerful and connected men in Liverpool,

and allegedly had to flee the country to escape the heat.

Now, you don't get that kind of shenanigans at the Venice Biennale!

I have actually won a John Moores art prize -

it's an honour I share with Sir Peter Blake.

That's because John Moores also sponsored the Littlewoods

Little Woody kids club drawing competition,

which I won in 1961 - and I got a pencil case.

That same year, young Peter Blake won the Junior John Moores

Painting Prize for his Self-Portrait With Badges.

He got £250.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-Nice to meet you.

And you.

The painting you won with is very iconic, you know...

-It's become iconic.

-Yes, extraordinary.

I'm wearing a blue denim suit,

which wouldn't have been worn in '61,

it would be very rare. The other thing is I'm wearing trainers.

Us young artists then wore them because Pollock wore them.

-Really?

-It was iconic because it was so weird.

Did it feel like a big deal, winning the John Moores?

Yes, at the time.

It was just getting into its stride, so '61 was a key year,

in a way - all the artists then...

The old boy was around, John Moore was still around, presented it.

It wasn't just the future hero of pop art

that the John Moores prize spotted early. That year,

Leon Kossoff and RB Kitaj came first and second in the main prize.

And even Lucian Freud won £40.

A beautiful picture

of him standing in a room in Paris,

with his wife Caroline Blackwood in bed, a famous picture,

and I'm pretty sure it was 40 pounds. If you could imagine that now.

That £40 for what is considered one of Freud's early period

masterpieces would have earned you a profit of over £27 million by now.

The very first time I met The Beatles and had

a conversation with John Lennon, his first words to me were,

"You shouldn't have won the John Moores,

"Stuart Sutcliffe should have got that."

-Really?

-Yes, absolutely!

Although Sutcliffe never won a prize,

John Moores bought one of his paintings.

He used the money to buy a bass guitar,

and helped form a band called The Beatles.

So, today's the day the short list of five is being announced,

and I'm told 49 out of the 50 artists have turned up.

They are laying on a buffet,

so that might have something to do with it.

In my day, painters were a scruffy load of sods.

These days, everybody looks very elegant, and so are the paintings.

Which painting is yours?

The one over there with all the thousands of people in it.

'Over 60,000 individually drawn people, to be precise.'

-How long did that take?

-About nine months.

Nine months on one painting.

Then about 12 months to recover!

There's more people here than there are artists.

I also haven't got me glasses on!

'I love the sense of surprise you get at the John Moores.

'One amazing image follows another.

'I found the person behind my favourite painting so far...'

It's about creating something memorable, and of beauty,

which is essentially tragic.

'But after a while, the atmosphere gets tense.

'What they really want to know is which of them has been short listed

'down to the final five. And in no particular order they were...'

-Mandy Payne.

-'..For her brutalist urban landscape.'

-Alessandro Raho.

-'..For his enigmatic full-length portrait.'

-Rose Wylie.

-'..For her huge, delirious group of ladies.'

-Juliette Losq.

-'..For an equally epic watercolour.'

And Rae Hicks.

'..Who was late.'

Was that overweening arrogance, or just bad geography?

I started in Whitstable, this morning.

Is that a kind of artist thing,

you started out from Whitstable as a kind of performance art piece?

That's right, I walked to Liverpool!

Ha-ha-ha!

Tell me about the painting.

It all came out as a kind of fascination with landscape

manufacture. Everything here is made to look like a prop.

-You've just kind of invented...

-Absolutely, it wasn't done from

-observation, exactly.

-Do you feel there's a beauty contest,

X-Factor kind of feel to this?

Um... I've only been on The X Factor once...

ALEXEI LAUGHS

You're going to win this. You're going to be the boy.

'If Rae wins, he'll be the youngest ever winner.

'His painting, by the way, in the terms of contemporary

'European art world discourse, is as cutting edge as you can get.

'So, the five shortlisted prize winners get £2,500 each,

'and their paintings will now go on to inanimately fight it out

'for £25,000 first prize money.'

Juliette Losq has entered a view of a back yard.

It's an intimate subject,

but painted on a gigantic scale

and in watercolour.

It's an intellectual and technical tour de force.

She won the Jerwood Drawing Prize in 2005,

so will she bag another top prize this year?

Your paper bill must be gigantic!

It's huge, it's one sheet, the biggest sheet of paper

I could actually find in one piece.

Why do you think you work so big?

It's the idea a watercolour is traditionally something small

and delicate, and it's portable and like a study. I just wanted

to say, well, actually, it can be as big as a history painting,

as big as an oil painting.

The subject doesn't have to be as grand either.

-Would you like to win?

-I'd very much like to win.

Are you the best here?

I'm not, but that doesn't stop me wanting to win.

'The other shortlistees then got tangled up with the press,

'but I wanted to catch up with them.

'I started off in Hastings, home of Alessandro Raho.'

If you were a betting man, you'd put your money on Alessandro to win it.

He was a student of Goldsmiths College in that crucial period,

and he exhibited in the Brilliant! exhibition,

which was full of young British artists, and gave the world

the moniker...Young British Artists.

You could say he's a player.

-Hello.

-Hello, come in.

-Thank you. After you. It's your studio.

-Are you excited about the John Moores?

-Really, yep, thrilled.

There's a few flights of steps here.

-I'm right at the top in the little studio.

-It smells of cloves.

That's very knowledgeable.

You're one of the only people to have ever noticed that -

even painters, it's a trade secret.

'I get the feeling Alessandro and his young family moved away

'from the London art scene, so he could practise his trade in peace.

'His repetition of cool, stark portraits smacks of a painter

'creating images for posterity to look back on,

'and painstakingly mastering his craft.'

People sometimes say to me, why don't you take it up again?

It would take me five years to get back to the physical skill I had

when I was 18 or 20 years old.

-Yeah.

-It's a physical activity, it's a craft -

-that's, in the end, what's thrilling about it.

-Yeah.

I'm trying to make the marks that irritate me the least.

Often I'll paint these up and they quickly look quite nice,

sketching them in, but then I find that mark irritates me,

because it's showy, or it likes its cleverness.

Oil paint is such a sensitive medium, there's nowhere to hide.

It'll pick up everything, but you do learn to get used to it.

There's still some bits on here - I don't know if it's...still there.

I'm just taking... Can you see those slight lines?

I'm just starting to...

-So this is pushing around paint that's on the surface.

-Right.

So that creates feelings that are different to if I had a brush

-and did this.

-Right.

-You know, I'm able to modulate it

while it's on there.

This surface is meant to entice,

meant to be seductive as a painted surface,

it's creamy, very thick paint, actually,

that I've just kind of pushed down.

Who's this?

This is a commission, this is something new.

I haven't done many commissions.

'Alessandro proves that the John Moores prize is still

'a beacon for the very best of British painting.

'His paintings are masterful,

'and there's no doubt they'll become more important as they age.'

You know, I have thought - not to be too morose -

this would be an interesting room when we're all dead.

What happens, you know, when you become these ghosts?

That's how painting exists,

that's one of the beautiful aspects.

You look at communities that have gone,

and cultures that have gone,

and the paintings are still there.

'Later, I'm going to meet Mandy Payne and Rose Wylie,

'but first, I'm off to meet the Chapman Brothers,

'to accuse them of being despotic.'

You see, in 1965, none other than Clement Greenberg was

the chair of the John Moores jury.

This great American critic could make or break a painter's career

with a Caesar-like wag of his thumb,

and his latest cause was colour-field painting.

So, what sort of painter won, I wonder?

None other than prominent British colour-fieldist Michael Tyzack,

who was closely followed by fellow abstract colourist

Michael Kidner.

What if there weren't one, but two Clement Greenbergs on the jury?

Jake and Dinos Chapman, collectively known as the Chapman Brothers,

are the scourge of the British middle-class.

Their work is puerile, highly irritating and brilliant.

I actually paid for two brothers. Where's the other one?

The other one's gone missing. Doesn't actually exist.

I should have his face painted on the back of my head.

'I wanted to confront Jake with an uncanny description

'of a painting he and his brother short listed for the 2008 prize.'

Jake, if I could just read one of the descriptions

of one of the paintings what you chose - Grant Foster, Hero Worship.

"Painting indicates inhuman and barbaric practices.

"The characters are both victim and villain,

"self-portrait and fiction."

Does that sound like anybody you know?

-Let me see that. I didn't pick that.

-You saying you didn't pick that?

No, no, I did.

When you and your brother were on the jury, did you feel

compelled to pick work like yours?

Your tendency towards things is going to be governed

by similarities in ideas.

So, as a fully paid up pessimist,

you don't often find yourself gravitating towards things

that are optimistic.

You didn't feel compelled as a jury member to be more...

Even handed? The problem is that the way in which we judge

works of art is often by whether a child can like it.

I think Matisse has to be defended from the idea that

little Tarquin can cut out pieces of tissue and stick them on paper.

That there's any similarity between the two is absurd.

It's like saying walnut's good for you because it looks like a brain.

You know? There's no connection. ALEXEI CHUCKLES

There's no connection.

'In a desperate attempt to bring him around to the point of the interview

'I asked Jake to pick a winner.'

I don't know, really, what do you think?

'Typically, he was more interested

'in the back of the images than the front.'

-Have you got any preferences?

-That one.

ALEXEI LAUGHS

-There's always a dark underbelly.

-'Should have known better.'

'The next stop on my John Moores odyssey was Rose Wylie.'

Rose!

'When we set up the interview with her,

'she decided that she'd like to see me paint rather than paint herself.'

-Hello.

-Hi, Rose.

I've got you for an art class.

'After seeing Alessandro,

'I'd actually like to give it another go.'

They're not girls' gloves, so they should fit OK.

I use these to pick up the cat's poo.

They're very good, and then you throw them away.

Rose is British painting's Cinderella.

She has been painting since 1956,

and is admired by fans such as Germaine Greer.

For the last 20 years, she's been on the verge of a big prize,

but never quite got there.

She's pretty rugged, isn't she?

'In its own quiet way, Rose's work is pretty rugged.

'It has to be to withstand the jibes of people like Brian Sewell,

who called Rose "a mad old bat in second infancy,

"whose scribbles, scrawls and daubs are deplorable rubbish."

He doesn't realise the paintings are done with huge difficulty.

You don't feel annoyed with him?

-No.

-Let's let that dry and talk about one of your pictures.

Your model was Joe Hart, England footballer and dandruff model?

It was Joe Hart for quite a long time, four months, six months,

and then I turned him into a Nazi.

Do you think your paintings are actually saying something?

They're saying the picture. They're saying what they look like.

That's all. There's no politics.

Not really, no. I quite like the message to be how it looks.

I think Rose is more radical than that. If you look closely,

you'll see her paintings satirising the act of painting itself.

She's a real punk,

and deserves to be one of the art world's most admired painters.

And she's helped me paint Kinki Nazi Leg,

my first painting since art school.

So, do you think painting is a compulsion?

I think it probably is. Why do we go on doing it when nothing happens?

You just keep doing it.

What making this programme has brought up for me

is how much I've lost by being what I am, because the way

you painters are is this wonderful kind of self-contained

sense of satisfaction.

'Rose first entered the John Moores Painting Prize in 1990.

'If she wins, nearly 25 years after her first attempt,

'she'll be the oldest and most subversive ever winner.

'I'm beginning to miss painting. But it's never too late to start.

'Mandy Payne only became a full-time painter in 2013.

'Her inclusion on the short list

'is what makes the John Moores so unique.

'She's new to the game,

'but her images of Sheffield's Park Hill flats have the power

'and presence that most artists fail to achieve in a lifetime.'

So, Mandy, one day people will visit this site as they now visit

-Giverny for water lilies.

-I doubt it, but, yes.

-Is it celebratory?

-I think it is.

Celebratory of the architecture, the history, memories.

'Technically, Mandy's paintings are astonishing.

'Out in her garden shed,

'she sprays with aerosols onto her concrete canvases.'

Where did that impulse come from?

I wanted to use materials integral to the site, so that's why I started

using concrete. This is the mould I used for Brutal,

and I think I possibly used one of these old baking trays,

which have got the little feet on

which you can use to hang the piece of concrete when it's finished.

'Mandy works on her images section by section.

'And, like every streetwise tagger knows,

'it's all about varying the pressure.'

You actually have the picture in your head?

MUFFLED: Yeah, I know what...

You know what you're doing. I can't hear a word you're saying.

What, I'm the greatest comedian of all time?

That's nice of you to say!

SHE LAUGHS

There's only been three women have won the prize since 1957.

The odds are not great then, are they, really?

Sarah Pickstone was the last one, wasn't she? That was last year.

Mind you, there are three women in the final.

I'm going to go to the betting shop

and wager a sovereign on Mandy Payne!

OK, that's all the five shortlistees -

Rae Hicks, Juliette Losq,

Alessandro Raho, Rose Wylie and Mandy Payne.

'But who's going to win?

'And what will winning do for them?

'I went to the artistic capital of western Europe -

'Hackney in East London - to ask Peter Doig,

'who, when he won in 1993, didn't have two pennies to rub together.'

Bloody...

This is a beautiful space.

Not too bad, yeah?

'When Peter Doig's White Canoe

'was sold at Sotheby's for £5.73 million in 2007,

'he entered the super league, but, unassuming as he is,

'he is unarguably one of the world's greatest living painters.

'In 1993, he was on the verge of giving up painting

'when he got a £20,000 reprieve through the post,

'care of John Moores.'

I just assumed it was a rejection letter,

because I had entered a number of times before and never been accepted

even into the exhibition phase.

So I just assumed it was a rejection letter.

But I opened it up, and it was a shock.

It seems to me that winning the John Moores Painting Prize with Blotter

means more to Peter Doig than the millions he's got for his paintings.

To be part of the group of artists that have won the John Moores -

you knew Bridget Riley had won it,

Richard Hamilton had won it, you knew Hockney had won it.

I have the five shortlistees here, and I'd like your opinion.

You could say it comes from kind of a British tradition of, you know,

Spencer, Freud.

This looks quite knowing, in current trends of painting.

I know this guy, I used to teach him at Goldsmiths years ago. Interesting.

Don't recognise that austere looking...

It's actually painted on concrete, as well.

That to me is a real achievement,

someone is able to handle scale in a very sophisticated way.

If you see a Rose Wylie painting, you know it's a Rose Wylie painting,

and that's special.

So which do you think would be your choice?

Well, I'm going to sit on the fence a little bit

and say I'd like one of these three to win.

So, today is the day when the winner is announced.

I'm actually very excited.

Through making this programme, I've actually become very fond

of all those who were shortlisted, and this is my last chance to talk

to them before one of them has their lives changed completely for ever.

Just a bit.

This bit is quite stressful, the last bit was nothing to lose.

It's something that will be on my CV for ever

and I'm pleased to have got as far as I did.

I've always put in for it, then you get rejected,

then you get in and you're one of the prize-winners.

Totally fine. Quite mellow.

I'm trying not to focus on it, really,

-just blank it out of my mind.

-Where do you think you are, then?

Who knows!

The announcement of the John Moores Painting Prize 2014.

And that winner is Rose Wylie.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Sort of like a proud parent, even though she is a lot older than me.

Brian Sewell is going to go bat shit.

-He won't know what to say about it.

-So, how do you feel now?

I feel terrific. You know, it's very unexpected.

My daughter was quite sure I would win it

and I was quite sure I would not.

Well, that's it. I feel weirdly emotional, really.

I'm thrilled for Rose, but I feel sorry for the other four, in a way.

It's been interesting. I think being a painter is a wonderful life.

It does make me want to get my paint out again,

but, on the other hand, I don't know if I could take the tension.