Sovereign Art Foundation

The Sovereign Art Foundation is a charity registered in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom that raises money to help disadvantaged children using the arts as rehabilitation, education and therapy.^[1]

The Foundation was established in 2003 and runs the annual Sovereign Asian^[2] and European^[3] Art Prizes and is launching the Sovereign African Art Prize this year.

The Prizes are visual arts competitions that aim to give recognition to the region's most exciting contemporary artists. They initially focused on artists working in the medium of painting only but have since expanded to include other 2D mediums including photography, drawing, and print. They bring together the work of established artists and emerging talent.

Howard Bilton, a tax lawyer who turned his art-collecting hobby into what is now Asia’s largest art prize, set up the Foundation. Bilton is also the chairman of the Sovereign Group.

Procedure

The Sovereign Art Foundation invites a network of experts from throughout Europe, Asia and now Africa to nominate artists to participate in the Prizes. This critically driven process allows for the leading, mid-career contemporary artists to be showcased through the awards.

The panel of expert judges then selects thirty artists from the nominated submissions to form the finalist shortlist. The short listed artists are then exhibited in a major public space.

During the exhibition the final judging is performed live and the winner of the 25,000 Euro/US dollar first prize is announced.

At the culmination of the exhibition there is a charity gala auction where the finalists’ works, excluding the first prize winner, are auctioned, with half the proceeds going to the Foundation, and the other half going back to the artist.

Charity and funding

The Sovereign Art Foundation has used the funds raised through the art prizes it runs to support various charities that help disadvantaged children using the arts as rehabilitation, education and therapy. Two specific examples are M’Lop Tapang and the Kalki Welfare Society.

M'Lop Tapang

M'Lop Tapang works jointly with children and their families to access education, health care, counseling, income generation initiatives and other services needed to secure a better future. It also works in the community to increase awareness about issues affecting street children, in particular abuse, amongst local people, police, teachers and government officials, helping to make the community a safer place for children. The Sovereign Art Foundation is working with M’Lop Tapang to create a two-year arts programme to help them teach new skills to the disadvantaged children of the area.

Kalki Welfare Society

The Kalki Welfare Society is a non-profit organization working for vulnerable children of Pondicherry, India and nearby areas. Since June 2008 Kalki has striven to provide a better opportunity to street and other vulnerable children living in very poor conditions, offering them the chance to become active players in their lives. The Sovereign Art Foundation is working with the Kalki Welfare Society to establish an arts project for the disadvantaged children it supports.

Other Beneficiary Charities

The Sovereign Art Foundation has also supported Kids Company, The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts, Room to Read, The Peace Art Cambodia Project and the Hong Kong Youths Art Foundation to name just a few. Over the years the Foundation has raised in excess of US$2 million for charitable activities. The Sovereign Group is the main sponsor of the Sovereign Art Foundation. Sovereign pays all the administrative expenses, salaries, office costs and the prize money. Partners are sought for the sponsorship of the key events and previous exhibitions and auction dinners have been generously supported by Louis Vuitton, Bulgari, Barclays Wealth, Jaeger Le Coultre, Cathay Pacific, Sotheby's, ADM Capital and many others.

The Prizes

The Sovereign African Art Prize

The 2011 Sovereign African Art Prize will be the inaugural prize for The Sovereign Art Foundation in Africa. The Foundation was established in Hong Kong in 2004 and is well known for running seven successful art prizes in Asia and four in Europe.

Entry for the African prize is by expert nomination only and a world class panel of judges will select the best 20 entries as finalists. The 20 finalists will be exhibited at the Johannesburg Art Fair from 22–25 September and will then be sold with proceeds being evenly split between the finalists and charity.

The aims of the African art prize are to (i) raise public awareness of African art; (ii) provide much needed exposure, recognition and opportunity to African artists; and (iii) raise significant funding for charities in Africa.

The Sovereign Art Foundation has been very successful in discovering mid career artists who have quickly gone on to achieve record prices at auction so the opportunity to purchase these works presents a compelling case for investment whilst assisting a worthy charitable cause.

The prize will follow the same format as its Asian and European counterparts. Entry is by nomination only. The Sovereign Art Foundation will assemble a large panel of art experts from all over Africa who will be asked to nominate the best African artists and encourage them to submit images of their work for evaluation. Next a panel of renowned judges will select the best 20 works and these will be exhibited at the Johannesburg Art Fair.

During the exhibition the judging panel will evaluate the 20 finalists and decide the winner who will receive a cash prize of US$25,000.

There will also be a public vote prize. The public will be invited to choose their favourite piece by either voting at the exhibition or voting online through the website gallery. The artist who receives the most public votes will receive a prize of US$1,000.

The gala dinner will take place after the exhibition at a venue to be decided. The winning artists will be presented with their prizes at the dinner. The winning piece will become the property of the Foundation and will be loaned to patrons, sponsors, museums etc. and the remaining 19 finalists, including the public vote prize winner, will be auctioned with the proceeds being split evenly between the artist and The Foundation. All funds raised by during the evening will be applied without deduction to assist charities that help disadvantaged children using the arts as rehabilitation or therapy. This is possible as all overheads of The Sovereign Art Foundation are covered by the patronage of The Sovereign Group. In 2011, the beneficial charity of The Sovereign African Art Prize will be The African Arts Trust.

The 2011 Sovereign African Art Prize Judging Panel

Robert Devereux
Julian Ozanne
Jean Pigozzi
Simon Njami
Riason Naidoo

The Sovereign Asian Art Prize

The Sovereign Asian Art Prize was initiated in 2003 when the Sovereign Art Foundation was established as a charity in Hong Kong and is the Sovereign Art Foundation’s most established prize having had over 2000 artists in the region submit entries in its history.

The prize follows the same format as its African and European counterparts. Entry is by nomination only. All entries are then judged by a renowned judging panel that has a strong authority in contemporary Asian art. This is the first part of a two part judging process where the 30 strongest pieces will be the art prize finalists. The finalists are usually exhibited in a prominent public place in Hong Kong. In 2010, the finalist exhibition was for the first time toured in Singapore and in Hong Kong. In 2011, the finalist exhibition will be toured in Shanghai, Seoul, Singapore and then finally in Hong Kong. (see: The Sovereign Asian Art Prize). The second part of the judging process will take place live, at the exhibition in Hong Kong where the art prize winner will be announced. The 29 remaining pieces will then be auctioned off by Sotheby’s at a charity dinner where 50% of the proceeds of each sale will go to the artist and the other 50% will go to the foundation. All proceeds made on the evening by the foundation will go directly towards its charitable aims (see above).

Additionally, the award also includes the "Schoeni Prize" which is named in memory of Manfred Schoeni who died in 2004. This prize is decided solely by public votes cast at the exhibition and through the Sovereign Art Foundation website. The prize carries a nominal award of US$1,000.

As well as raising funds to assist art projects in Asia, The Sovereign Asian Art Prize strives to recognise the most innovative and influential artists of our time.

Winners

Year	Artist	Country
2010	Pala Pothupitiye	Sri Lanka
2009	Debbie Han	Korea
2008	Chow Chun Fai	Hong Kong
2007	Kumi Machida	Japan
2006	Uttaporn Nimmailaikaew	Thailand
2005	Tsang Kin Wah	Hong Kong
2004	Jeffrey Du Vallier D’Aragon Aranits	Hong Kong

Judges

Judge	Year	Judge	Year	Judge	Year
Sir David Akers-Jones	2004	Dr Gao Shiming	2006	David Elliott	2009
Dr Christina Chu	2004	Enin Supriyanto	2006	Fumio Nanjo	2009
Professor Kurt Chan	2004	Mr Robert Lee	2006	Xu Bing	2009
Angelina Bleach	2004	Mr David Elliott	2007	Uli Sigg	2009
Claire Hsu	2004	Mr Jean-Baptiste Debains	2007	Apinan Poshyanda	2009
Jeffrey Du Vallier D’Aragon Aranits	2005	Mrs Pamela Kember	2007	David Elliott	2010
Prof Chan Yuk Keung	2005	Ms Victoria Lu	2007	Fumio Nanjo	2010
Dr. Christina Chu	2005	Ms Bridget Tracy Tan	2007	Xu Bing	2010
Claire Hsu	2005	Peter Aspden	2008	Lars Nittve	2010
Ark Fongsmut	2006	Ms Victoria Lu	2008	Graham Sheffield	2010
Dr Alice Guillermo	2006	Pooja Sood	2008	Tan Boon Hui	2010
Claire Hsu	2006	Xu Bing	2008	Sir David Tang	2010
Fumio Nanjo	2006	Pamela Kember	2008

The Sovereign European Art Prize

The Sovereign European Art Prize was established in 2006 following the success of the Sovereign Asian Art Prize in London. The prize has since had over 1,500 artist entries from the European region.

The European art prize runs on the same format as the African and Asian prize. Entry is by nomination only. All entries are then judged by a renowned judging panel that has a strong authority in contemporary European art. This is the first part of a two part judging process where the 30 strongest pieces will be the art prize finalists. In the past the 30 finalists have been exhibited in London but in 2011 this will move to The 2010 European capital of culture, Istanbul. The second stage of the judging process will be carried out live at the exhibition where the art prize winner will be announced, who will receive $25,000 US dollars. The remaining 29 finalist art works will be auctioned off in the same format as the Asian Art Prize, where 50% of the proceeds will go to the artist and the other 50% to the foundation.

The beneficial charity of The 2011 Sovereign European Art Prize will be Acik Kapi, a local Turkish charity whose primary concern is providing shelter for homeless children, who will use the funding to establish an arts programme at their centre.

As well as raising funds to assist art projects in Europe, The Sovereign European Art Prize strives to recognise the most innovative and influential artists of our time.

Winners

Year	Artist	Country
2009/2010	David Birkin	United Kingdom
2008/2009	Nadia Hebson	Germany
2007/2008	Damien Cadio	France
2006/2007	Susan Gunn	United Kingdom

Judges

Judge	Year	Judge	Year	Judge	Year
Sir Peter Blake	2006/07	Charlotta Kotik	2006/07	Alan Yentob	2008
Jorge Molder	2006/07	Prof Janwillem Scrofer	2006/07	Tim Marlow	2009/10
Charles Esche	2006/07	Sir Peter Blake	2008	Philly Adams	2009/10
Shaheen Merali	2006/07	Tim Marlow	2008	Gavin Turk	2009/10
Ami Barak	2006/07	Rachel Campbell-Johnston	2008	Robert Punkenkhofer	2009/10
Giorgio Bonomi	2006/07	Jarvis Cocker	2008	Joseph Backstein	2009/10
Angela Flowers	2006/07	Philly Adams	2008	Nasser Azam	2009/10