Gateway to British Art Prizewinners 2020

The Yale Center for British Art has partnered with Gateway Community College (GCC) to launch the Gateway to British Art Prize. The aim of this initiative is for students across academic disciplines to select one artwork from the Center’s collections (this year using the museum’s extensive online collection) and to write about it in a thoughtful, persuasive way.

First place: Matthew Scanlon

Scanlon skillfully interweaves historical and current sociopolitical events with a description of Stanley William Hayter's painting Work in Progress (1936).

Read his essay

Second place: Megan Blais

Blais delivers a touching interpretation of William Turner of Oxford's Shepherd Boy on a Hillside (1840). Even though perfection and homogeneity are often sought after, there is beauty in flaws and difference.

Read her essay

Runner-up: Britney Hunt

Hunt describes the impact of color in Francis Danby's painting Sunset at Sea after a Storm (1824) and how it conveys the colossal forces that nature possesses.

Read her essay

Runner-up: John Quiroz

Quiroz describes how John Farnham created the sculpture Life Form (1981) and explores the emotional and humbling journey that it takes observers on.