Antony Gormley awarded Praemium Imperiale

Antony Gormley and other 4 artists are honoured with Praemium Imperiale awards, the richest arts prize in the world.

09:02 18 September 2013

Sculptor Antony Gormley is one of the five laureates for this year’s Praemium Imperiale Awards. He and the other four artists; director Francis Ford Coppola, singer Placido Domingo, British architect David Chipperfield, and painter Michaelangelo Pistoletto, will receive the world’s riches arts prize on October when the formal awards ceremony will be held in Japan. Each of them will receive £95,000 prize. The artists are rewarded for their international impact in the specialist fields of painting, architecture, sculpture, music, and theatre/film.

This is not the first time Antony Gormley is recognised for this exceptional work. In 1994, he was awarded Turner Prize and in 1997, he received OBE for his services to sculpture.

Speaking at his studio in London, Gormley said that he is honoured to accept the award. He added that UK and Japan share similarities as “cultures that live in a small group of islands.”

He continued: We share a kind of social repression. The stiff upper lip might be shared by a Samurai warrior as well as a Victorian member of Parliament.

"But underneath that reserve there is enormous passion and intelligence, and often that's expressed in very, very extraordinary ways."

UK adviser for the prize, BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten, said: "Every year we are delighted to honour five more remarkable artists but it is particularly gratifying to have British sculpture and architecture so well represented in this 25th anniversary year."