An artist's journey

After completing a self-funded Master’s degree at UCL’s Slade School of Fine Art, Sarah Macdonald was awarded a life-changing prize for female artists, funded by a gift left to UCL in a will, to help boost her career and hone her artistic practice.

An artist's journey

After completing a self-funded Master’s degree at UCL’s Slade School of Fine Art, Sarah Macdonald was awarded a life-changing prize for female artists, funded by a gift left to UCL in a will, to help boost her career and hone her artistic practice.

**Sarah Macdonald (UCL Fine Art MFA 2010)**

**Sarah Macdonald (UCL Fine Art MFA 2010)**

Fifteen years after graduating from UCL, Sarah is a lecturer in graphic design at the University of Greenwich.

“Following my Fine Art bachelor’s degree, I spent almost a decade freelancing for galleries and waitressing to pay studio rent. By 30 years old, I was hungry to return to education.”

Sarah successfully applied to a Master's programme at UCL's Slade School of Fine Art. “While studying at the Slade I had space to reflect, learn from incredible tutors and peers, and be pushed into a different stratosphere in terms of the criticality of my practice.”

Funding the course, however, was a challenge. Sarah worked freelance during the week and babysat in the evenings. “At first, babysitting felt a bit demoralising at that stage in my life. But I came to recognise that being an artist is a real privilege.”

After end-of-term exhibitions, Sarah’s work saw her awarded the Clare Winsten Memorial Prize. The award, which each year provides a female artist with a grant of £10,000, was established at the bequest of Clare Winsten.

About Clare Winsten

Clare Winsten (née Clara Birnberg) was a Romanian-born artist who emigrated to London to flee pogroms in the early 1900s. She received a scholarship to study art at the Slade and went on to earn international acclaim.

While studying at the Slade, Winsten became the only woman among the so-called 'Whitechapel Boys', a group of artists and poets, which included her future husband Stephen Winsten, and her Slade contemporaries, Mark Gertler, David Bomberg and Isaac Rosenberg.

She was given unrestricted access to paint Mahatma Gandhi’s portrait in London in 1931 and George Bernard Shaw sat for at least three portraits by Winsten.

She died in 1989 and her work is now held in the Ben Uri Collection, the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery and UCL Art Collections.

A gift left to UCL in Winsten’s will established her eponymous prize for female artists to support them in their early career development.

A portrait of Clare Winsten by the poet and artist Isaac Rosenberg (one of her Slade contemporaries)

A portrait of Clare Winsten by the poet and artist Isaac Rosenberg (one of her Slade contemporaries)

Lillet, du lait, le lit (oil on canvas, 92x66cm) by Sarah Macdonald

“When I received the letter, I sat on the kitchen floor and wept,” said Sarah.

“I felt so proud that my tutors believed I was worthy of this support. The head of the Slade told me: ‘Don’t spend it on rent and tea bags – do something bold. Take risks.’ It was brilliant advice.”

With the grant, Sarah joined a peer on a drawing expedition across the west coast of the US, then spent three months in Berlin continuing her practice. “This trip gave me a massive body of drawings, and they helped me build a lifelong relationship between my drawing and painting practice. I did it all on a shoestring, so I was able to put a deposit down on a shared studio when I came back.

“It made me appreciate how incredibly generous legacy giving is. People are paying into a future that they will not see or be a direct part of. But I think that is beautiful, particularly as it becomes harder and harder to work as an artist.”

“Now being able to teach young artists, I want to cultivate and inspire students the way I was inspired at the Slade.”