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.
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“There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature, such as it is, weak or strong, and the thing which pleases us. Whatever is formed according to this standard pleases us, be it house, song, discourse, verse, prose, woman, birds, rivers, trees, room, dress, and so on. Whatever is not made according to this standard displeases those who have good taste.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
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—Christina Stead (1902–1983)
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A duskish river dragon stretched along.
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—Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803–1849)
“The real risks for any artist are taken ... in pushing the work to the limits of what is possible, in the attempt to increase the sum of what it is possible to think. Books become good when they go to this edge and risk falling over it—when they endanger the artist by reason of what he has, or has not, artistically dared.”
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—Robert Graves (1895–1985)