1998
Winner:
Chris Ofili
Shortlist:
Jury:
- Ann Gallagher, Exhibition Officer, British Council
- Fumio Nanjo, curator and critic
- Neil Tennant, representative of the Patrons of New Art
- Marina Warner, author and critic
- Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate Gallery
First time painter wins Turner in a decade!
Chris Ofili was the first painter to be awarded the Prize since Howard Hodgkin in 1985. His sumptuous paintings proved extremely popular with critics and public alike. However, the resin-coated balls of elephant dung, on which the paintings were propped, inspired irreverent newspaper headlines. Visitor figures rose to 120,000 – an almost fifty percent increase on the previous year. The Prize’s growing popularity acknowledged its success in connecting with the wider public yet also created concern about over-exposure of the artists and their work.
Afrodizzia 1996 Courtesy Chris Ofili – Afroco and Victoria Miro Gallery, London © Chris Ofili
The 1998 Turner Prize invitation
The 1998 Turner Prize invitation 
The 1998 Turner Prize nomination form Quotes
‘The way I work comes out of experimentation, but it also comes out of a love of painting, a love affair with painting.’
– Chris Ofili quoted in Twenty Years of the Turner Prize, 1998
‘Is this simply adolescent exhibitionism designed to annoy the grown-ups, or a subversive exploration of racial and sexual stereotypes? Probably a bit of both … If you can get past the shock tactics, these paintings have sharp things to say about ethnic identity in modern Britain.’
– Jane Burton, The Express, July 1998
‘Ofili’s paintings are not what some people would call proper painting … to break one or two rules of good taste is nothing special – but breaking so many at the same time; Ofili creates surfaces of apeculiar beauty and fascination. It is an art of excess.’
– Tom Lubbock, The Independent, 1998
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