German photographer wins Turner Prize

This is an inkjet color print titled "I Don't Want to Get Over You" by artist Wolfgang Tillmans (2000)

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LONDON, England (CNN) -- A German photographer has won Britain's prestigious and often controversial Turner Prize.

The prize -- worth £20,000 ($28,000) -- was awarded to Wolfgang Tillmans at a ceremony at London's Tate Britain gallery on Tuesday night.

The jury said Tillmans, who studied in Bournemouth and now lives in the UK, created photography showing striking images from everyday life.

The Turner Prize is awarded to a British artist under 50, or an artist working in Britain, for outstanding work in the last year. The honor was established by Tate's Patrons of New Art in 1984, and is intended to promote discussion of trends in contemporary British art.

Tillmans had said before the competition: "Only in rare moments does the nature of a person or of a cityscape reveal itself visually to me...that is a special and rare situation which I look or wait for...to transform simple things around me into something unique."

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Tillmans first won acclaim by photographing friends at raves, protest rallies and festivals.

The decision follows a day of controversy during which one of the four short-listed contenders was accused of virtually copying a 1974 sci-fi paperback cover written by Robert A. Heinlein called "Double Star" and illustrated by Tony Roberts.

Glenn Brown's huge canvas, "The Loves of Shepherds 2000," which depicts a giant spaceship orbiting a mysterious green planet was said by the British press to look stroke-for-stroke like the original cover.

Brown is renowned for his distortion, manipulation and rotation of work by famous artists including Salvador Dali and Rembrandt, while he acknowledges the original artists' work.

Wolfgang Tillmans was praised for his photographs of daily life

Promotional material from joint promoter Tate Britain says Brown sees "endless connections between his sculptures, portrait paintings and science fiction epics."

But Brown, 34, has been accused by the British media of using Roberts' drawing without acknowledging his work.

The Times newspaper said the exhibition catalogue did not include Roberts' name, nor did the gallery's Web site, nor the press material sent out a month before the competition.

Turner organisers were quick to fend off accusations of plagiarism against Brown who trained at Norwich School of Art, Bath College and Goldsmiths College in London.

The director of the Tate, Sir Nicholas Serota, who is chairman of the judges, defended Brown as a "rather remarkable painter and artist."

Serota added: "I would argue that it is not a piece of plagiarism in the first instance.

"We certainly know that Glenn Brown has frequently used the work of other artists in developing his own work. But that's true of Picasso, who borrowed from Rembrandt, it's true of Roy Lichtenstein who borrowed from Matisse," he said.

Brown's debt to Roberts has now been acknowledged in wall labels in the gallery, but the Tate was initially unaware of what Serota called "the close relationship between Glenn Brown's painting and the small illustration of Tony Roberts."

Wolfgang Tillmans

Serota said that Brown did use other artists' material, but transformed it by working on a completely different scale.

"Anyone who was to confuse the two would have to be extremely short-sighted," he said.

Roberts, 50, said he had not yet seen Brown's effort, but would still insist on his copyright.

The others in the running were Dutch landscape artist Michael Raedecker, whose canvases are covered with cotton and wool, and Japan's Tomoko Takahashi, who exhibits piles of junk.

But the prize has always provoked outrage among the traditional art world.

In 1998 it was won by Chris Ofili, who showed a painting of the Virgin Mary marked with elephant dung.

Last year, conceptual artist Tracey Emin made the short list with an unmade bed surrounded by soiled underpants and used condoms.

And in 1995, Damien Hirst won with a sheep pickled in formaldehyde.

The exhibition continues at the Tate Britain until January 14, 2001.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Tate Britain Gallery
Turner Prize 2000
Turner Prize history
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Turner Prize 1998 (ARTnewsroom)
Turner Prize winners, 1984-2000
Channel 4
Damien Hirst

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