Robson Orr TenTen Award 2020

Yinka Shonibare CBE was awarded the Robson Orr TenTen Award 2020 by the Government Art Collection. The new work was unveiled at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office in October 2020 by Caroline Dinenage MP, Minister of State (Digital and Culture) and Penny Johnson CBE, Director of the Collection.

The Robson Orr TenTen Award is presented jointly by the Government Art Collection with Outset Contemporary Art Fund and is sponsored by leading philanthropists Sybil Robson Orr and Matthew Orr. Every year a British artist is commissioned to create a unique, limited edition print to be shown in diplomatic buildings across the world. A small number are available for purchase through a collaboration with pioneering philanthropic arts organisation Outset to raise funds for the GAC acquisition fund. The 10-year scheme was launched in 2018 with the first two awards given to Hurvin Anderson (2018) and Tacita Dean (2019).

Yinka Shonibare CBE with his blockprint Hibiscus and the Rose.

Shonibare’s woodblock print Hibiscus and the Rose is a beautifully vivid encounter between two scarlet floral blooms.

Hibiscus and the Rose is an expression of cultural exchange between Britain and the rest of the world. The hibiscus is a genus of numerous species of herbs, shrubs, and trees in the mallow family (Malvaceae) widely found in many of the warmer temperate Commonwealth countries. The rose is the national flower of England and has a long tradition within English symbolism. An exploration of Britain’s colonial past and its current relationship with its former colonies is symbolised through the Hibiscus and the Rose.

Yinka Shonibare CBE

The interplay of race, place, history, politics and class in the construction of cultural identity is at the core of Yinka Shonibare’s diverse practice. Coming to prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s, his headless figures festooned in 17th-century clothing made from Dutch wax Indonesian batik fabrics synonymous with African design, were shown globally leading to a Turner Prize nomination in 2004, and a prominent installation in Documenta XI in 2008. Two years later saw his first public art commission, Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle, displayed on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, London, a maquette of which is in the Government Art Collection, with his now hallmark use of Dutch wax fabrics acting as sails. The cultural entanglement of this textile through industry and design is at the crux of Shonibare’s work that critiques a mono-cultural narrative, and exposes complex global relationships, particularly between Africa and Europe.

For the third year of The Robson Orr TenTen Award the global relationships and identities of British artists are once more in evidence. Born in London and having spent his childhood in Nigeria, Shonibare came back to the UK to study Fine Art at Byam Shaw School of Art and Goldsmiths College. The Hibiscus and the Rose woodcut print, that also boasts a rich pattern using the Dutch wax designs, eloquently celebrates a childhood growing up in Lagos and London, and speaks of global relationships. As a child in Nigeria Yinka Shonibare would pick the nectar from the hibiscus flower to eat, whilst the rose evokes his British identity. Conscious that the prints will hang in UK government buildings around the world, Shonibare created an image that is both personal and universal.

To purchase a limited edition TenTen print and contribute to the Government Art Collection’s mission to support UK art and emerging UK artists, please contact Outset Contemporary Art Fund.

Watch Hibiscus and the Rose as it was created:

Yinka Shonibare CBE was born in 1962 in London and moved to Lagos, Nigeria at the age of three. He returned to London to study Fine Art, first at Byam School of Art (now Central Saint Martins College) and then at Goldsmiths College, where he received his MFA.

Shonibare’s work explores issues of race and class through the media of painting, sculpture, photography and film. Shonibare questions the meaning of cultural and national definitions. His trademark material is the brightly coloured ‘African’ batik fabric he buys in London. This type of fabric was inspired by Indonesian design, mass-produced by the Dutch and eventually sold to the colonies in West Africa. In the 1960s the material became a new sign of African identity and independence.

Shonibare was a Turner Prize nominee in 2004, and was also awarded the decoration of Member of the ‘Most Excellent Order of the British Empire’ or MBE, a title he has added to his professional name. Shonibare was notably commissioned by Okwui Enwezor at Documenta 11, Kassel, in 2002 to create his most recognised work ‘Gallantry and Criminal Conversation’ that launched him on to an international stage. He has exhibited at the Venice Biennale and internationally at leading museums. In September 2008, his major mid-career survey commenced at the MCA Sydney and then toured to the Brooklyn Museum, New York and the Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. He was elected as a Royal Academician by the Royal Academy, London in 2013. In January 2019, Yinka Shonibare was awarded the decoration of CBE.