Artist Anne Rothenstein, RWA Academician represented by Stephen Friedman, is a Guest Judge for Jackson’s Art Prize 2025. In this interview, she discusses the transformative impact of gallery representation on her career, the physical feeling that great art evokes, and why originality and obsession are key to great work.
Waiting, 2023
Anne Rothenstein
Oil on wood panel, 152 × 122 cm | 59.8 x 48 in
Interview with Anne Rothenstein
Josephine: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your artistic practice?
Anne: I’m Anne Rothenstein and I’m a painter. I would describe myself as a conventional painter in oils, but I’m untrained, so I’ve had to teach myself how to use oil paint and that’s been a part of my whole practice. I paint on wood as I don’t like canvas and I like the grain of the wood, which often comes into the work.
I come from a family of artists, but that doesn’t necessarily inform my work. I stopped painting for quite a long time and spent 10 years being an actress. So when I came back to it, I was completely out of the art world and had to start teaching myself how to paint again. It’s been extraordinary, interesting, and exciting. I’m still learning, who isn’t learning? I’m still very much in the throes of being enthralled by oil paint.
Unknown Territory 2, 2022
Anne Rothenstein
Oil on wood panel, 150.2 × 123 cm | 59.1 x 48.4 in
Josephine: Can you tell us about a career highlight or any memorable moments as an artist?
Anne: I suppose the most important career highlight I have had throughout all the years I’ve been working was when Katy Hessel came for a studio visit. She then introduced me to the Stephen Friedman Gallery, which completely changed my life. It kind of all went from there, and being involved with such a prestigious gallery has been a huge step forward.
Black Rocks and Clouds, 2024
Anne Rothenstein
Oil on wood panel, 122 × 122 cm | 48 x 48 in
Josephine: What exhibitions or artists have inspired you over the last year?
Anne: I went to see the Hew Locke exhibition at the British Museum last week, and I think that’s the most important exhibition that’s gone on this year. It’s full of beautiful things and information that is just horrific. It’s basically artifacts from the British Museum paired with plaques by Hew Locke. The plaques tell you the real truth about how the artifacts were looted and where they were looted from, but not in an aggressive way. Every school should go and visit it as part of their history lesson. It was very affecting and I’m very pleased I went.
The artist that I’ve found most inspiring this year has been Rose Wiley. I really admire her and I think she is a terrific inspiration. Not just to do with her age, but as someone who has completely followed her own path and has worked persistently. She was not influenced by what might be fashionable and really just stuck to her guns. The fact that she’s still so full of life in her 90s and had a wonderful display at Frieze, I think she’s wonderful.
Seated Figure, 2024
Anne Rothenstein
Oil on wood panel, 182 × 152 cm | 71.6 x 59.8 in
Josephine: How important or helpful do you think awards and competitions are to artists today? What makes a good competition?
Anne: I think competitions weren’t part of my world, I don’t know what competitions existed when I did my foundation course. Now they are, but I’ve never won. When I was taken on by my first gallery, I had no CV, and I still had no CV when I went to see Stephen Friedman. Back then there were no degrees or prizes or residences or all those things that people seem to need now to have a show. I’m ignorant about all of that because it didn’t exist when I was young, but I presume now they are terribly important as they hold weight.
I think the Royal Academy Summer Show is a rather wonderful competition, the pleasure it gives people who get accepted into the summer show and being able to have a moment on a wall is delightful.
I don’t know much about competitions, but I’m sure they are helpful and they give an incredible boost to the artist who wins the competition. Sometimes it’s a lift, it’s exposure, it’s all of those things. I think it’s really good that this competition gives people a place to exhibit and to be involved in something.
Josephine: Are you looking forward to selecting the winner of your own Judge’s Choice Award?
Anne: This is the first time I’ve been asked to be a judge in a competition, and this is actually a great chance to look at a lot of contemporary work. I’ve never been involved in competitions so it’s going to be an interesting experience to review other people’s work. I have no idea what I’m going to be confronted with and I quite like the element of being surprised by something, being intrigued by something.
Blue Bedroom, 2023
Anne Rothenstein
Oil on wood panel, 120 × 90.5 cm | 47.2 x 35.5 in
Josephine: What will you be looking for amongst the submissions?
Anne: I won’t be judging any piece of art through any kind of intellectual or knowledgeable sort of track. I wouldn’t look at a work of art and think, “Gosh, how brilliantly skillfully bled that is painted.” That doesn’t interest me. It would put me off. I’m not very keen on high skill and high technique because I think once you’ve got there, that’s slightly the end of the journey. So what I’m looking for, or when I look at a piece of artwork, my response to it is a feeling, it’s a physical feeling. If I don’t get any kind of feeling, the work is simply meaningless to me and I don’t get it. When you get that feeling, it’s quite unlike anything else and you can’t sort of describe it.
I would say that the very few times that I’ve felt a piece of work of mine is working, I get a physical feeling. That physical feeling is what I look for when I’m looking at other work. It has to have its own originality and its own signature, but it’s impossible to say what I would look for. I will look for the feeling that I get when I really respond to a piece of work. I’m hoping that I will respond in this way to something that passes by on my screen.
I like Andrew Torr’s painting, which won last year’s Jackson’s Art Prize. It’s very original of him to paint those estates and I love that he’s obsessed with them. Obsessiveness is also what I’m interested in. It’s got that odd eccentricity and you’ve got to have that if you’re going to be an artist. I think you have to send in a piece that you are completely and utterly not necessarily happy with, because one’s not always happy with work, but that it’s somewhere along the line, something is right about it for you.
Red Moon, 2023=2
Anne Rothenstein
Oil on wood panel, 122.3 x 122.3 cm | 48.1 x 48.1 in
Josephine: What advice would you give to artists who are thinking about entering Jackson’s Art Prize?
Anne: My main advice would be not to be disillusioned and disappointed if you don’t win or make the shortlist or even the longlist. I think it’s a completely arbitrary moment in life and each judge will have a completely different opinion. They have to agree somewhere along the line and that will be an arbitrary choice in some ways because they have to.
I would also say, you must send in something that you completely believe in and not that you think the judges will respond to. If you’re an artist, you should know what you feel has worked by your own standards, by your own ways that you work in, that something has happened that you feel has gone right.
Watch our interview with Anne Rothenstein on Instagram
Further Reading
How We Collaborate With Artists
Jackson’s Art Prize 2024 Exhibition at the Affordable Art Fair
Art Fair Checklist for Artists
Expert Advice on Making Your Way as an Artist
Visit Jackson’s Art Prize website
