The finalists for the inaugural Sorrento Art Prize have been announced and Marion Harper's entry Fallen (after Manet’s The Dead Toreader) has been shortlisted. Congratulations Marion.
Marion Harper, Fallen (After Manet’s The Dead Toreador), 2024, oil on oak panel, 50x80cm
"Manet first showed his painting ‘The Dead Toreador’ In May 1864, the same year the Public Morgue opened in Paris. Standing in the shadow of the Cathedral of the Ille de la Cite, the morgue was free and open to the public at all hours. It allowed people to walk through and view the bodies of the dead. The Internet has become another such morgue, a spectacle and witness of death, killing, bombing, occupation and displacement. I painted my son Dash here as a dead toreador, felled by the brutality of the world this year." - Marion Harper 2025
Sorrento Art Prize is on exhibition at &gallery 28 June - 31 August 2025.