The Standard Bank Young Artist Awards were started in 1981 by the National Arts Festival to recognise emerging, relatively young South African artists who have demonstrated exceptional ability in their chosen field. These prestigious awards are presented annually to deserving artists in three to four arts disciplines, affording them national exposure and acclaim. Winning artists, as part of their award, are given the opportunity to perform, direct or exhibit on the National Arts Festival’s main programme. Standard Bank became the title sponsor of the awards in 1984 and have presented Young Artist Awards in all the major arts disciplines, as well as posthumous and special recognition awards.
Some 89 artists have been recipients of the awards since their inception in 1981. Previous winners include the likes of Paul Slabolepszy (1983), Andrew Buckland (1986), William Kentridge (1987), Johnny Clegg (1989), Darryl Roodt (1991), Sibongile Khumalo (1993), Vincent Mantsoe (1996), Bongani Ndodana-Breen (1998), Gregory Maqoma (2002), Yael Farber (2003) and many more.
Famous quotes containing the words standard, bank, young, artist and/or award:
“A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“The prairies were dust. Day after day, summer after summer, the scorching winds blew the dust and the sun was brassy in a yellow sky. Crop after crop failed. Again and again the barren land must be mortgaged for taxes and food and next year’s seed. The agony of hope ended when there was not harvest and no more credit, no money to pay interest and taxes; the banker took the land. Then the bank failed.”
—Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968)
“There was a young lady of Ryde
Who was carried far out by the tide.
Cried a man-eating shark,
“How’s this for a lark?
I knew that the Lord would provide.””
—Anonymous.
“The creative artist seems to be almost the only kind of man that you could never meet on neutral ground. You can only meet him as an artist. He sees nothing objectively because his own ego is always in the foreground of every picture.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)