Fifty sculptors from across the UK will receive £2,000 each from the Henry Moore Foundation, UK, in the wake of the current cost-of-living crisis and funding cuts across the culture sector. The grants, which total £100,000 and are part of the Artist Award Scheme, are unrestricted and can be used to buy new materials, pay studio rent or bridge funding gaps.
Godfrey Worsdale, the director of the Henry Moore Foundation, says in a statement: “Unrestricted funding is rare, but it is often what artists need most. These awards honour Moore’s legacy by empowering sculptors to sustain and develop their practice, enabling them to create work that challenges, inspires and contributes meaningfully to public life.”
The recipients were nominated by a panel of 25 arts professionals representing each region in the UK and Northern Ireland. Panellists include Viviana Checchia, the director of Void in Derry, and Nicole Yip, the director of Spike Island in Bristol. The successful artists all incorporate sculpture in their work.
Essex-based Rebecca Moss, who was awarded funding, says: “It has come at a very timely moment, as I have just made some kinetic sculptures for an art ghost train for a project with Museum Tinguely in Basel, and it has opened up a world of new possibilities for my work, thinking about prop objects, kinetic sculptures, playful exhibition formats and immersive installations.”
The Greek-born artist Stella Baraklianou says that the funding will enable her to explore different materials and processes. “By offering funds directly to the artist, this award encourages experimentation. I intend to use the grant to research and explore new ideas and see how they translate onto materials, clay and epoxy.”
Other artists who have benefitted from the foundation funding outline daily challenges. Edinburgh-based Andrew Gannon, another grant recipient says: “In a cost-of-living crisis, this award means the difference between being able to make work or not. This money will be put towards studio and materials costs, allowing me to make new work. It comes at a time when I am working towards an exhibition, We Contain Multitudes, at Dundee Contemporary Art.”
The Artist Award Scheme was launched in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic and continued in 2023. Previous recipients include the 2024 Turner Prize winner Jasleen Kaur, who received one of the inaugural grants in 2020. Manon Awst, who has been chosen to represent Wales at the 2026 Venice Biennale, received an award in the second round.
Henry Moore, who died in 1986, benefitted from an ex-serviceman’s grant after he fought in the First World War, which enabled him to study at Leeds College. In 1921, he also received a Royal Exhibition scholarship to study sculpture at the Royal College of Art in London.
