LIVERPOOL.- Artists have the chance to win prize money of £25,000 by entering the John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize 2010. This year’s jury sees former Royal Academy Exhibitions Secretary Sir Norman Rosenthal joined by contemporary artists Goshka Macuga and Gary Hume, Liverpool-born artist Ged Quinn and painter Alison Watt.

The John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize is an open submission competition available to all UK-based artists working with paint. Previous winners have included David Hockney, Peter Doig and Michael Raedecker.

The judging will take place throughout 2010 and will result in an exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery from September 18, 2010 to January 3, 2011, forming a central part of the Liverpool Biennial.

Reyahn King, director of art galleries at National Museums Liverpool , says: "The John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize provides a first prize of £25,000 and is a unique opportunity for artists to show their work in a major gallery.”

Littlewoods founder Sir John Moores, a keen painter, started the exhibition in 1957. In the last 50 years nearly 2,000 artists have exhibited. More than 100 people have sat on the jury including singer Jarvis Cocker, writer Germaine Greer and artists Peter Blake, Tracey Emin and Jake and Dinos Chapman. The Moores family remain involved through the Walker ’s partnership with the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition Trust.

The final deadline for artists to register is February 19, 2010 – online registration can be found on www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/johnmoores. Images must be sent in by March 5, 2010 and winners will be announced at the opening of the exhibition.

Entries have to be original, new or recent paintings within a set size, designed to hang on walls, by someone who lives, or is based, in the United Kingdom. Full conditions are on the website. Judges will see all shortlisted artworks at Stage 2 of the judging process.

Juror’s Biographies

Gary Hume
Gary Hume was born in Kent in 1962 and lives and works in London and upstate New York, USA. He is renowned for paintings distinguished by a bright palette, reduced imagery and flat areas of seductive color. Hume first received critical acclaim with a body of work known as the "Door" paintings. His recent solo shows include Kunsthaus Bregenz (2004) and the Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover (2004). Recent group shows include Tate Britain, London (2004) and Louisiana Museum, Denmark (2004).

Alison Watt
Alison Watt was born in Greenock in 1965 and studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1983-88. From 2006 to 2008, Watt was the Associate Artist at The National Gallery in London, the youngest artist in the scheme's history. Her solo exhibition "Phantom" (2008) explored her enduring fascination with one particular painting in their collection, Zurbaran's "St. Francis in Meditation" (1635-9). In 2003, she was shortlisted for the Jerwood Painting Prize and was awarded an OBE in 2008.

Ged Quinn
Ged Quinn was born in Liverpool in 1967. He studied at Ruskin School of Drawing, Oxford and Slade School of Fine Art. He has had many solo shows including "Utopia Dystopia" at Tate St Ives (2004) and "My Great Unhappiness Gives me a Right to your Benevolence" at Wilkinson Gallery, London (2007). His painting "There's a House in my Ghost" was exhibited in the John Moores 25 exhibition in 2008. He also exhibted work at Tate Liverpool as part of the Liverpool Biennial during the same year.

Goshka Macuga
Goshka Macuga was born in Poland in 1967 and lives and works in London. She studied at Wojciech Gerson School of Art, Warsaw; Central Saint Martins School of Art, London; and Goldsmiths College, London. Goshka Macuga has been nominated for her solo exhibition "Objects in Relation", "Art Now" at Tate Britain and her contribution to the 5th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art. In 2008 she was nominated for the Turner Prize and in 2009 exhibited work at the Venice Biennale.

Sir Norman Rosenthal
Sir Norman Rosenthal was born in Cambridge in 1944 and is a freelance curator and writer. He became Exhibitions Secretary of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1977, where he stayed for 30 years, overseeing loan exhibitions and working with distinguished curators. Sir Norman Rosenthal has already been awarded the highest Honours and Decorations from the Italian Republic, Federal Republic of Germany, French Republic and the Federal Republic of Mexico. In 2009 he contributed an essay to the Anish Kapoor exhibition catalogue which was written to accompany the artist's show at the Royal Academy.