17th
DANIEL AND FLORENCE GUERLAIN
DRAWING PRIZE

DANIEL & FLORENCE GUERLAIN
CONTEMPORARY ART FOUNDATION

An integral part of the artistic scene since 2006, every year the Daniel and Florence Guerlain Foundation’s Contemporary Drawing Prize honours a laureate from among the three artists selected by a committee of seven experts.

The Prize concerns artists for whom drawing on paper or cardboard is a significant part of their work. The nominated artists can be of French or foreign nationality on condition that they reside in France or have a privileged cultural link through institutional exhibitions. All graphic mediums are accepted except for computer or mechanical processes.

 

The laureate is chosen by a jury of collectors which is renewed each year.

The Prize’s endowment: 25 000 euros, including 15 000 euros for the laureate and 5 000 euros for each of the two other artists.
A work by the laureate is offered to a French institution by the Foundation.

Promote and highlight the place of contemporary drawing in art

Contemporary art collectors for more than 30 years, Daniel and Florence Guerlain rapidly developed a passion for drawing and have put together a collection of works from more than two hundred and forty artists of forty or so nationalities. The quality and wealth of this collection were revealed by their donation of 1200 drawings to the Centre Pompidou and  dedicated exhibitions in Paris (470 works at the Centre Pompidou, 2013), in Libourne (100 drawings at the Musée des beaux-arts, Chapelle du Carmel, 2014), in Sweden (250 drawings at the Nordiska Akvarellmuseet, 2015-2016) and in Aalborg, Denmark (250 drawings at the Kunsten Museum, 2016).

 

But Daniel and Florence Guerlain have not contented themselves with putting together the most important private collection of contemporary drawings in France. As early as 2006, they created the Contemporary Drawing Prizewhich rapidly became a benchmark on the art scene. Why a prize dedicated to drawing? Quite simply because this couple of collectors wished to promote and highlight a medium embodying both great classical tradition and bold modernity. For a long time used as an instrument of apprenticeship or a means of study, little by little drawing acquired its own full-fledged status nowadays acknowledged by everyone. Considered to be the finest means of capturing fleeting intuition and the closest medium to thought, drawing allows for a freedom of expression that always goes straight to the essential. Then again, the diversity of the graphic means - pencil, charcoal, ink, wash tint, gouache, watercolour, pastel, felt tip or sanguine – is such that works on paper or cardboard, collages and wall drawings offer a limitless field of exploration for connoisseurs, ever more passionate and growing in number, of contemporary drawing.

 

The exceptional dedicated exhibition by the Centre Pompidou in 2017 of the 30 artists distinguished by the Prize illustrates the recognition of the quality and importance of the work accomplished by these great French art patrons. The first exhibition of the Drawing Prize abroad was presented in Germany at the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen until the 24th of February 2019.

The actors in the 2024 Drawing Prize

The 2024 International Jury

Every year the Foundation gathers together a jury around Daniel and Florence Guerlain, exclusively comprised of French and foreign collectors given the task of choosing the winner.

Renewed for each edition, this year the jury is comprised of:

Harry Tappan Heher, American,
Damiana Leoni, Italian
Claudina Trapani Paauw, Dutch
Gérard Boulois, French
Patricia Dupin, French
Philippe Lhotte French
Florence & Daniel Guerlain, French.

 

The Selection Committee
Since the creation of the prize, the selection of artists is made by a permanent committee of six experts:

  • Emmanuelle Brugerolles, Honorary General Curator of Heritage
  • Yuan-Chih Cheng, adviser to the Department of Artistic Creation at the French Ministry of Culture
  • Hervé Halgand, collector
  • Lucia Pesapane, exhibition curator
  • Florence and Daniel Guerlain, collectors and founders of the Drawing Prize.

Laureates

Silvia Bächli, Switzerland (2007), Sandra Vásquez de la Horra, Chile (2009), Catharina Van Eetvelde, Belgium (2010), Marcel Van Eeden, Netherlands (2011), Jorinde Voigt, Germany (2012), Susan Hefuna, Germany (2013), Tomasz Kowalski, Poland (2014), Jockum Nordström, Sweden (2015), Cameron Jamie, United States (2016), Ciprian Muresan, Romania (2017), Mamma Andersson, Sweden (2018), Claire Morgan, Irland (2019), Juan Uslé, Spain (2020), Françoise Pétrovitch, France (2021), Olga Chernysheva, Russia (2022), Pascal Leyder, Belgium (2023).

The 2024 prize is awarded to the artist Amir Nave.

NOMINATED ARTISTS - 2024 EDITION

The nominated artists for the 17th edition of The Daniel and Florence Guerlain Drawing Prize, on December 11th 2023 are:

Lamia Joreige, Lebanese artist born in 1972

Amir Nave, Israeli artist born in 1974

Christos Venetis, Greek artist born in 1967

The announcement of the winner will take place on Thursday, March 21, 2024 at the Salon du Dessin, Palais Brongniart.

The works of the selected artists will be exhibited there from March 20 to 25, 2024.

Lamia JOREIGE

Lamia Joreige, through various mediums such as drawing, photography, video, object, and installation, explores our relationship with history and its influence on us. She poses the central question of how to create forms and narratives from real and historical facts. This artistic approach is the result of extensive research and reading, mainly focused on Lebanon and its region.

In recent years, Lamia Joreige has been particularly interested in the formation of Lebanon during World War I. The troubles in Syria, which could affect the entire neighboring regions, have revived her memory of this historical period when nations were redrawn and fragmented. She delves into the archives of King Faisal, who could have led the first independent Arab monarchy, a project that ultimately failed. She also explores the consequences of the massive famine of 1915, caused by a locust invasion, as well as various speculations and maritime blockades. Her goal is to understand the impact of these upheavals on the mental and physical levels of the affected populations.

Lamia Joreige
Lamia Joreige, Uncertain times, Faisal’s Dream 1, 2022

Uncertain times, Faisal’s Dream 1, 2022

Mixed media on paper
34.5 x 45.5 cm encadré
Courtesy Marfa’ Projects SAL
Collection Florence and Daniel Guerlain

Amir Nave, La comédie humaine, 2019

La comédie humaine, 2019

Collage and pencil on paper
24 x 15.5 cm
Courtesy of IN SITU - Fabienne Leclerc
Photo credit: Aurélien Mole
Collection of Florence and Daniel Guerlain

Christos VENETIS

Christos Venetis, through the use of torn book covers, presents a vision of the world that combines poetic projection, reflection on the role of the image, and the collection of the countless images to which the internet exposes us.

In a sort of artistic protocol, Christos Venetis mainly creates his graphite pencil drawings on these ghost book covers. A striking contrast emerges between these small formats, characterized by their delicacy, precision, and meticulousness, and the battered bindings of the books, whose titles remain unknown. Although these supports may evoke dark hours of history, particularly the book burnings of the Second World War, the global question of image representation and narration becomes central. The artist expresses his desire to work with a form of absence of choice, seeking to restore "materiality to the image".

His sources range from the Thousand and One Nights to intellectual figures such as the literary historian Sven Spieker or the art critic Benjamin Buchloh, who have analyzed the notion of archives. He explains his approach in these terms: "I choose my subjects online, initially focusing on the black and white palette. If the sources are in color, I convert and crop them. I also sometimes blur certain elements or zoom in on specific details. In this way, I work precisely on the loss or impossibility of narration, in the manner of Walter Benjamin."

Christos Venetis
Christos Venetis, Sans titre, 2022

Sans titre, 2022

Pencil on book Cover
21 x 31.5
Courtesy Galerie Martin Kudlek
Collection Florence and Daniel Guerlain

FIGURES, SPONSORS & PARTNERS

The Drawing Prize in figures

17 editions since its launch
The Contemporary Drawing Prize was launched in 2006. It became annual as from 2009.
3 artists nominated for each edition
6 experts for the selection committee
9 collectors in the jury

The winner is chosen by a jury comprising nine members, including the two founders and seven private collectors, either French or foreign.
The jury is renewed for each prize. (Vote by secret ballot).

 

1 laureate

The Drawing Prize is awarded to an artistic work. The laureate receives an endowment of 15.000 euros and the two other selected artists receive an endowment of 5.000 euros each. A work by the laureate is offered to a French institution by the Foundation.

 

 

The Drawing Prize’s Sponsors

The Cercle des Amis of the Daniel & Florence Guerlain Contemporary Art Foundation
The Foundation’s support group, the ‘Cercle’ is strongly committed to the prize that it assists at every stage.

La Maison Guerlain, www.guerlain.fr

Neuflize OBC, www.neuflizeobc.fr

Artcurial, www.artcurial.com

Artprice by ArtMarket.com

Voisin Consulting Life Sciences, www.voisinconsulting.com

Groupe Élysées Monceau, www.elysees-monceau.fr

Groupe Pasteur Mutualité, www.gpm.fr

PatrimOne assurances

Arte Generali

 

Partners

Le Salon du Dessin -  La Maison  Ruinart