Martin Clayton, Head of Prints and Drawings - Royal Collection Trust I really enjoyed the process, which took me many passes before I settled on my scoring. I look forward to seeing which works made the cut!
Alice Reed It was a great honour to help select the paintings, submitted by members of the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour, to be added to the Royal Collection in 2025. It was exciting too, to see so many wonderful watercolours, such high technical quality overall and a very wide variety of themes and styles. In their own right, all of the paintings are winners. I felt a responsibility to choose fairly, to represent the membership of the Society in its scope and diversity, especially for such a prestigious collection. It was not an easy task to narrow down the artworks to less than a third of entries, but I hope I've done well to serve the CSPWC in my endeavour.
Bonnie Brooks All of the watercolours submitted showed the amazing talent of our members. I felt that the on-line ArtCall app used was very helpful and non biased. It was an honour to participate in this event.
Ron Hazell As a juror for the Royal Trust Project celebrating the 100th anniversary of the CSPWC, I was both honoured and humbled to view the amazing works by the members of the society for jurying. The quality of work made it incredibly challenging to vote for 25 paintings for addition to the Royal Trust Collection at Windsor Castle.
Wendy E Hoffmann Jurying for this collection has been both an honour and a sobering experience. The challenge was not in admiring the exemplary quality of each treasured work, but in putting together a group of paintings that would showcase a diversity of interpretive styles while at the same time including a wide range of subject matter. This became a very difficult process. While landscapes tended to be the most offered, it was important to include portraits, still life, architecture, and animal life, each with its own degree of abstraction. Drawing down the number to twenty five outstanding paintings was daunting. Congratulations to those artists whose works were selected by the jury for inclusion in the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour RCT25 honouring our one hundredth anniversary.
Diana Dabinette There was an outstanding variety in the works submitted for this competition which made the choice quite difficult. There were a number of common themes, such as figure studies, Canadian nature, still life and florals with a very broad diversity of approach. It was wonderful to be included in the process but quite a challenge to make the final selection. Congratulations to the successful applicants!
Vivian Thierfelder The range of entries for this phase of the project was surprising and reassuring, speaking to the strength and endurance of our beloved medium. I looked for structure, technique, emotional impact and that certain "je nais se quoi". This group of 25 works will be a remarkable final addition to this years-long project, reaffirming the CSPWC's connection to one of the finest collections of art, both historic and contemporary, in the world. It was a pleasure and an honour to be a juror for this last phase of the journey.
Brent Laycock The CSPWC has worked diligently over recent decades to assemble a remarkable collection of Canadian watercolour paintings that will be preserved in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle. The selection of the final twenty-five pieces is a complex challenge that I and all the other jurors knew would be tough. The foremost question for me was to understand what the valid criteria for judgement should be. Obviously, the primary one would be quality of the work. Usually, the skill and genius of the artist are apparent but not always. Sometimes it’s easy to admire classical high realism as a test of skill, but often a surprisingly unique loose abstraction exhibits an equally demanding skill. Many of the juror’s decisions will be slanted because of their own preferences and taste. I frequently found myself looking more carefully at the pieces that held less instant appeal to me so that I could try to understand them better. In the end, I was quite grateful that there were many other jurors on the panel. This system, I believe, would give all those who submitted works a high level of confidence that the selection process was as fair as possible. In the end, the selection of a collection is similar to the creation of an artwork. Choices have to be made. Not every brushstroke survives, but the final result should be something inspiring. Congratulations to those whose submissions survived, and many thanks to those whose entries were not successful. Know that your works were seen, studied, enjoyed and appreciated.
E. J. Hunter It has been such a privilege to be part of this very important CSPWC jury for the final selection of paintings to be given to the Royal Collection - one of the largest and most important art collections in the world. It is a tremendous honour to have participated in this wonderful, unique experience.
Rudolf Stussi Jurying is always a difficult thing, but especially with art, since there are so many different directions, and, as an artist, you prefer one or the other and can't be completely neutral (unless you're Swiss, of course!). Still, you try. And this jurying was difficult, and there are always a few that maybe should have got through and a few that shouldn't have. The online jurying was well organized and as good as can be expected, though I do much prefer having the originals in front of me. The range of styles and subject matter was large, but I found there wasn't as much figurative work as I would have liked. And some, while technically skilled, lacked focus, which I think is very important. Of course, I am glad there were very competent others on the jury, to offset my shortcomings! I do hope the result will be a treasured addition to the CSPWC collection at Windsor Castle.
Jane Hunter Being a part of the jury for the C.S.P.W.C. for the Royal Trust collection was, for me both stimulating and challenging. Viewing the diversity of inspiration, viewpoints, compositions and handling of the medium of watercolour was a joy! Difficult decisions were made as we considered the images and lived with them day by day. I am sure that everyone who entered valued the importance of this challenge and honour for our Society.
