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Album inspiration books top prize

A Talented student has scooped Scotland’s biggest art school prize thanks to inspiration from a family photo album. Henry Coombes, 24, won the Glasgow School of Art Newbery Prize after creating modern installations based on Victorian photos. The final-year undergraduate also impressing tutors by turning childhood memories into works of art.

His work includes a pheasant crash helement, white clay bunny rabbits with real fur heads and a video of the artist as four figures in an old photo. Henry said: ‘The idea was to give life back to dead objects through the creative process. The people in the photos are locked in an eternal present and denied a past or a future. I reinterpreted memories of childhood and turned them into surrealistic pieces.’ The prize is seen as a recognition of talent and a stepping stone to future success.

It was set up 1920 to honour Francis Newbery, one of the art school’s first directors. Previous winners include John Byrne, Ken Currie, and Janice Kirkpatrick. Byrne, who won the Newbery Prize in 1963, is now an acclaimed artist and playwright, while Currie, a New Glasgow Boy, is a figurative painter. Their canvases could soon be exhibited in Bute House, after Jack McConnell decided to replace 19th Century paintings with works by politically committed modern artist. Kirkpatrick runs Graven Images, a successful Glasgow design studio, and has been a collector for the Conran foundation. Henry’s Happily Married Financially Secure exhibition pieces are a fusion of the practical and imaginary.

Alison Harley, Glasgow School of Art head of design, said; ‘Henry is a very talented student as were all the finalists but he just seemed to have the creative edge.’