The Strong, Silent Type

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It's not quite the Turner Prize. There's no televised dinner and it will never make the front page of the Sun. But what the John Moores Prize lacks in razzmatazz it makes up for in art. For the past 38 years this biennial award has been quietly plodding away, doing its best to encourage British painting. The list of prize-winners, from John Bratby in 1957 through Heron, Blake, Hockney and Hodgkin, makes an impressive litany. A visit to this year's show of work by prize-winners and 60 others confirms the undimmed potential of the medium. It also offers some important lessons.

At the cutting edge of contemporary art, painting is too often neglected or maligned. The truth, …