Suffolk artist wins John Moores Painting Prize in Liverpool

The winning painting - 'Light Industry', from artist Graham Crowley - was inspired by the light in the Andy Tiernan classic car dealership in Framlingham.

Mr Crowley, who lives in Wickham Market, has won £25,000 and his creation will be on display in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool next year.

The 73-year-old first entered the competition at the age of 26, and although he has been shortlisted a few times before, this is the first year he has won.

Light Industry, winner of the John Moores Painting Prize (Image: National Museums Liverpool/PA Wire)

A record 3,357 paintings were entered for this year's prize, and Mr Crowley was named the winner in Liverpool yesterday evening (Thursday, September 14), 47 years after he first entered the competition.

Previous winners of the prize include David Hockney in 1967.

Mr Crowley said: "Having been into classic bikes all my life, I have visited  Andy Tiernan's many times for parts. 

"The place is a sort of counter-cultural museum, just men in overalls restoring old things. It's all about conservation, restoration. It's a fascinating, extraordinary place.

"Although it deals essentially with the past, it represents the future. As essential materials become more scarse, we need to re-use them.

"What I found enthralling about the place was the light; a diffused, dusty kind of light that emanated from a grubby, obscured skylight.

"It is a tall building and the light filters down through it. It's dusty. The whole painting has that sense about it. It is slightly second-hand, nothing is direct."

Mr Crowley added that his lifelong ambition has been to win the prestigious prize.

He said: "I am thrilled to bits. I believe the Walker Art Gallery collection is the most important exhibition in contemporary British painting. I first exhibited in 1976, when I was 26.

"There's an unwritten rule that if you win it, you do not enter it again, so once you have won it, you are done.

"I told myself it would be the last one, whatever the outcome. It has been a lifelong ambition to win the Moores."

Jurors for this year's prize included The White Pube, the collaborative identity of writers Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad.

They said: "Graham Crowley's painting is a rugged use of paint that manages to make a rugged scene absolutely glow; a blur of painting that makes memory and space momentarily lucid.

"In places, the monochromatic image ceases to be an image and paint and colour take over, which is very much the desired effect of a workshop - a haven we know all creatives are excited by."

Seventy of the artworks will be on display in the John Moores Painting Prize 2023 exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery from September 16 until February 25 next year.

The winner will also receive a a solo display at the gallery in 2025.