A NORTH-EAST artist has maintained the controversial reputation of Britain's most high-profile art award following suggestions he copied a painting from the cover of a 1970 sci-fi novel.

Hexham-born Glenn Brown, the only British-born artist to make the shortlist of last night's Turner Prize, became famous in the art world for his reinterpretation of classic artists such as Rembrandt, Dali and Van Gogh.

But it has emerged that one of his works, entitled Loves of Shepherds 2000, is a close copy of the cover of the 1970s Robert A Heinlein's novel, Double Star.

But Turner judges chairman Sir Nicholas Serota yesterday defended Brown against suggestions his painting was simply a copy of the illustration.

"I would argue that it's not a piece of plagiarism in the first place," Sir Nicholas said.

"But we certainly know that Glenn Brown has frequently used the work of other artists in developing his own work, but that is true of Picasso, who borrowed from Rembrandt - this is not new.

"The issue really is what the artist does with the material that he has borrowed. Glenn Brown is a rather remarkable painter and artist. He uses other artists' work, but that doesn't mean to say you could possibly mistake his work for theirs."

The £20,000 Turner Prize, established in 1984, is open to all artists working in the UK, and to British artists working abroad.

But 34-year-old Brown, who left his native North-East in 1984 for Norwich School of Art followed by Goldsmith's College in London where he now lives and works, first courted controversy in 1996, when he insisted that the walls of the Queen's Hall Arts Centre, Hexham, were painted bright yellow to display his work.

He is not the first Turner finalist to court controversy. Last year, Tracy Emin's installation of a soiled bed made the shortlist, and in 1995, Damien Hirst's pickled animal carcasses won the prize.

This year's finalists included Tomoko Takahashi, originally from Japan, painter Michael Raedecker, from Amsterdam and German-born photographer Wolfgang Tillmans.

Sir Nicholas said the success of foreign artists was not a question of British artists not being up to scratch.

"I think it is a question of recognising that the culture here is much richer than we could define by those who have simply been born in this country," he said.

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