New 'nicer' £25,000 art prize to rival Turner show

THE £70 billion investment giant Threadneedle is backing a new, £25,000 prize for figurative art, unveiled in London last night.

With no pickled sharks, unmade beds or bizarre installations allowed, it is seen as the more traditional art world's latest challenge to the values of the often controversial 25,000 Turner Prize.

A spokeswoman for the Mall Galleries in London said of the Threadneedle Figurative Prize: "This is a nicer prize, something the public will like as well."

The galleries hang work by the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the Royal Society of British Artists. "Almost none make anything that would ever reach the Turner," said the spokeswoman.