THE winner of the £25,000 Turner Prize did not deserve it, his art teacher at school said last night. His view was that Jeremy Deller had shown no promise in his art classes at Dulwich College.

Barry Adalian, whom the artist had accused of banning him from sitting O-level art because of his lack of talent, said he could not think of a less deserving candidate for the prize. “I am surprised he won,” Mr Adalian, now retired, told The Times.

“I thought that some of the other contenders were much better. I think, in particular, his graffiti is a bit passé. It has been done so many times before. That was my immediate reaction. It was old hat to me. Certainly at school he was not brilliant at all technically.”

He also dismissed Deller’s claim in his acceptance speech that he had been prevented from studying art at the school in South London. “I did nothing to discourage him. Quite the opposite,” he said.

Deller, 38, won the prize on Monday night for Memory Bucket, a mix of graffiti, video footage of anti-war rallies and a copy of the Hutton report on the death of David Kelly, placed on a dining table.

Judges had pondered whether to give the prize to Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell for their digital model of Osama bin Laden’s mountain hideaway; to Yinka Shonibare, whose works have featured headless dummies having sex; or to Kutlug Ataman, who has filmed people discussing reincarnation. They were won over by Deller’s “generosity of spirit, across a succession of projects, which engage with social and cultural context and celebrate the creativity of individuals”.

On winning the award, Deller told the audience at Tate Britain that it was probably a good thing that he was prevented from taking O-level art. “If I had taken it, I probably wouldn’t be here, so it was a good decision.”

He said of Dulwich College: “I wasn’t so much advised not to take the O level as not allowed to do it. I couldn’t draw, paint or sculpt.”

Mr Adalian, who lives in North London, said that, like Barry Viney, who had been head of art, he had a completely different recollection: “Barry said he wanted to make quite clear he had done nothing to discourage Deller from taking art. He would never do that — he wanted to keep up the numbers.”

Mr Adalian said that he had taught Deller in his early days at the school: “As far as I know, he did not take CSE and he certainly did not do O level. I am sure of that.

“He was a bit of a loner who stuck to his own path. Barry and I would often clash with him, which was fine.

“I am not saying that he bucked the system but he did not subscribe to being ‘processed’ and had his own ideas at an early age. He certainly did not want to go through the academic hoops and hurdles. But sometimes training is an impediment.”

Another former teacher at the school told The Times that Deller “was always determined to become an artist, which I didn’t believe in. Conceptual art was much less familiar. I admired his determination, but I didn’t have much faith in him making it as an artist.”

Mr Adalian said that art at Dulwich College had often been an escape route for pupils. He said: “It was a panacea for boys who did not fit in. We catered for outsiders who were not rugger-buggers.”

James Graham Maw, who was in Deller’s year and is now a fund manager, said: “Dulwich was about woodwork and rugby. Art was for fairies.”

After picking up his prize, Deller was asked about his technical limitations. He insisted that art today takes many forms beyond painting and “making things”.

He added: “People don’t draw and paint (any more) in the way that people don’t go to work on a horse.”

In the past, Deller, who lives in London and studied art history at the Courtauld Institute and Sussex University, has said of his work: “Art isn’t about what you make but what you make happen.”

His works include Acid Brass, in which he invited a traditional brass band to play reworked “acid house” anthems, and The Battle of Orgreave, in which he brought together veteran miners and members of historical re-enactment societies to act out the violent clash between miners and the police during the 1984-85 strike.

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