This site is about the suspected plagiarism of Edgeworth Johnstone‘s work in the Delaine Le Bas exhibit at the 2024 Turner Prize at Tate Britain, London UK. The 2024 Turner Prize opened on 25th September. Below is a side-by-side image of the most similar parts of the two works. Le Bas’s on the left, Johnstone’s on the right:
Both the Delaine Le Bas and Edgeworth Johnstone works in question, include a column of easy sums, black on white in near identical handwriting, next to a human figure in loose, draped clothing that appears to be wearing a fancy dress mask, with a nearby checker pattern. What makes Johnstone even more suspicious is the apparent changing of the way Le Bas writes her “4’s” from her previous work to be the same as his are in this one, and that all this work appeared on the same page spread of a book (titled “Masks”) that he published and sold in March 2024, roughly 6 months before the 2024 Turner Prize. All the work Johnstone suspects has been plagiarised has also been on his YouTube channel for anyone to see since 2019/2020. Delaine Le Bas works with John Marchant Gallery, who also work with the L-13 gallery, who Edgeworth Johnstone works with (via his collaborations with Billy Childish). Given the very small roster of artists both The John Marchant and L-13 gallery appear to work with, Johnstone considers it reasonably likely, from this alone, that Le Bas would have been aware of his work. Here’s a timeline:
25th March 2020: Johnstone first publishes his columns of easy sums in near identical handwriting to those in the, later, Le Bas installation, at the start of “Masks Episode 6” on YouTube:
30th June 2022: The same column of easy sums appears again in one of Johnstone’s mask themed Youtube videos, towards the end of “Untitled” :
(the easy sums appearing around 20 mins 42 secs https://youtu.be/1gpWJXxrk_8?si=LH0UhpeXOJfI42US&t=1240)
In the Le Bas installation, next to the column of easy sums, is a chequer pattern. Likewise, in Johnstone’s “Untitled” video a chequer pattern appears roughly 20 seconds earlier (around 20 mins 23 secs: https://youtu.be/1gpWJXxrk_8?si=nOPxmZCsbWaXw93z&t=1223). The same chequer pattern appears in Johnstone’s book “Masks”, published and sold at The Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution in March 2024 at an exhibition of Johnstone’s paintings (painted under the alias “Heckel’s Horse Jr.” )The column of sums and chequer pattern appear on the same page spread:
The chequer pattern first appeared online in Johnstone’s mask themed YouTube video “Geisha Club 2” on 19th December 2019:
In Le Bas’s installation, the chequer pattern is on the clothing of, what appears to be a human like figure with the face of a dog (our photo pending, but see the left hand side of this photo on Artlyst). A similar theme to Johnstone’s masks.
Johnstone also said “Might be a bit of a side note, but I’m not sure when Delaine Le Bas changed the way she write’s her 4’s to be the same as mine. In her earlier works I’ve seen, she writes them the more traditional way (eg. here and here). But now, in this Turner Prize work, she’s writing them differently, which also just happens to mirror my numbers column.”
Delaine Le Bas works with John Marchant Gallery.
Edgeworth Johnstone works with L-13 (via his collaborative work with Billy Childish).
John Marchant Gallery and L-13 work with each other.
John Marchant Gallery only has 7 artists listed on the “Artists” page of their website. L-13 only has 4 artists listed on theirs.
So it’s not just the multiple striking similarities between the Delaine Le Bas Turner Prize 2024 exhibit and Edgeworth Johnstone’s “Masks” piece, but the demonstrable likelihood there is of Delaine Le Bas having come across Edgeworth Johnstone’s work beforehand.
Delaine Le Bas works with John Marchant Gallery, who also sell Jamie Reid’s work (an L-13 artist). L-13 have sold Edgeworth Johnstone’s work as far back as 2014, and continue to sell and work on exhibitions of the artwork Edgeworth Johnstone has been making with Billy Childish since 2013. Regarding John Marchant Gallery and L-13 having a working relationship, see, for example Taking Liberties. Taking liberties includes doing things like plagiarising other people’s work.
Delaine Le Bas 
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