TOMMA ABTS WINS 2006 TURNER PRIZE
Abstract painter Tomma Abts has won this year’s Turner Prize; she is the first woman to win since Gillian Wearing took the prize in 1997, and the first artist devoted to painting since Chris Ofili in 1998, writes Charlotte Higgins for The Guardian. Abts was awarded the £25,000 ($49,500) prize by Yoko Ono at a ceremony at Tate Britain, and she has so far proved a hugely popular winner among the British art world. Abts saw off opposition from three other shortlisted artists—Phil Collins, Rebecca Warren, and Mark Titchner—each of whom wins £5,000 ($9,900). The Turner Prize awards a British-based or British-born artist under fifty for an outstanding exhibition. Since its inception in 1984, previous winners have included Howard Hodgkin (1985), Damien Hirst (1995), Martin Creed (2001), and, last year, Simon Starling, who dismantled a shed, made it into a boat, then turned it back into a shed again.
