A pioneering in-depth study of Impressionist garden painting by Clare A.P. Willsdon, Reader in Glasgow University's Department of History of Art, has been nominated for the prestigious Sir Banister Fletcher Award. The book, In the Gardens of Impressionism, is in competition to be named the most deserving book on architecture or the arts by a British author in the past two years.

Dr. Willsdon said: 'It is most exciting that In the Gardens has reached the shortlist for such a top award. The Arts Club, which makes the nominations from arts books, is a historic institution, whose members have included not only Rodin, Whistler and Sickert, but also writers such as Dickens, Twain and Trollope, musicians such as Joachim and Sir Charles Hall, and eminent actors, architects and surgeons'.

Dr. Willsdon's book was also nominated in 2005 for the National Library of Scotland/Saltire Society 'Research Book of the Year'. This followed a major North American award for her first book, Mural Painting in Britain 1840-1940, in 2002-3.

The winner of the Sir Banister Fletcher Award will be named by Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, at a ceremony at the Arts Club in London on 6th November.

Sir Banister Fletcher was an architect and architectural historian, who, with his father, wrote the classic History of Architecture on the Comparative Method, first published in 1896. The prize he founded is awarded in arts and architecture alternately, and is one of the principal non-fiction book awards in Britain; past winners have included Sir Kenneth Clark, Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, and Sir Ernst Gombrich.

Kate Richardson (K.richardson@admin.gla.ac.uk)

For more information contact the University of Glasgow?s Media Relations Office on 0141 330 3683 or email K.Richardson@admin.gla.ac.uk

First published: 26 October 2006