Background

The Alexandra Reinhardt Memorial Award is worth £10,000. It was established in memory of Alexandra Reinhardt, an artist who died in 2004 aged 43, having battled with a rare blood disorder and profound deafness all her life.

The Award was established to fund a 12 week artist-in-residence project culminating in the creation of a piece of public art. The Award aims to not only provide an opportunity to highlight and inspire artists but to work with people in a therapeutic way enabling them to interact in the making of an artwork.

The Award was launched in 2005. The first five awards have been in NHS hospitals around the country and in conjunction with the charity, Paintings in Hospitals. Read more about the Previous winners.

From 2010 the Award will be run by The Art Room, a charity that offers art as therapy to young people aged 5 -15 to raise their self-esteem, self confidence and independence. Most are disengaged from mainstream education, disruptive or withdrawn and all have been identified as needing special time away from their school. Many of the students have specific learning difficulties or have had an interrupted education. The Art Room operates programmes in several different schools in Oxford and London and the residency will take place in a different venue each year. Read more about The Art Room.