One of my recurrent themes in recent years has been about how art societies really need to get their acts together and highlight those artists and paintings that win prizes - while the exhibition is current and not past.
Otherwise it's
- Neither supporting the artists;
- Nor showing courtesy to the sponsors of the prizes - who do like to see some recognition
I'd thought great strides had been made - but apparently not with all societies.....
It's therefore very sad to report that this week the
Royal Society of Portrait Painters has completely failed to make any mention of its prizewinners at the 2019 Annual Exhibition - which opened on to the public on Thursday - on
It's a very great pity as these are decent prizes and great paintings - and I'm sure the artists would appreciate a mention. Most of the viewing public - particularly those who buy or commission - are online these days and you can't ignore online!
HOWEVER, The Mall Galleries Blog has posted
Introducing the award winners from this year's Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition.
Nevertheless for the sake of completeness I will continue with mine - not least because the link on Facebook to the post kept returning the "
This site can’t provide a secure connection - bit.ly uses an unsupported protocol" message on both Chrome and Safari - before I could get it to show me the post!
In contrast to the Mall galleries blog post,
I'm listing the prizes in order of the monetary value of the Prize - and will also add commentary on each one.
The Ondaatje Prize for Portraiture (10,000)
The Ondaatje Prize for Portraiture is sponsored by Sir Christopher Ondaatje CBE OC and the Ondaatje Foundation, this generous prize of a £10,000 cheque plus the Society’s Gold Medal is awarded for the most distinguished portrait of the year.
The winner of Ondaatje Prize for Portraiture 2019 is Peter Kuhfeld RP NEAC.
It's quite the smallest Ondaatje Prize I've seen in recent years. I'd quite got used to them tending to be rather large. This by way of contrast is a small and quite subtle painting - very unflashy, but interesting nonetheless.
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Winner of the Ondaatje Prize 2019
Executive Chef by Peter Kuhfeld RP NEAC
oil, 38 x 38cm (15 x 15 inches) NFS |
Interestingly it's a long time since this artist last won a prize (he won the The Prince of Wales Prize for Portrait Drawing in 2002) - although he won a lot while at the Royal Academy Schools. One gets the impression this is not an artist who pursues prizes.
The artist was born on 4 March 1952 in Cheltenham - the only child of a German prisoner of war and an English classical pianist. He subsequently studied art at Leicester School of Art (1972-76) prior to teaching art at Rugby School of Art (1976-1978) and further postgraduate study at School of Painting, Royal Academy Schools then taught at the Royal Academy Schools in 1981. He was elected to membership of the New English Art Club in 1986 and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1992 - from which he resigned in 2005
(according to Wikipedia - although he appears to have returned to the fold at a later date).
Prince Charles has been a patron of his and Kuhfeld painted portraits of Prince William and Prince Harry in 1986. He also commissioned by HRH The Prince of Wales to paint
the royal wedding of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. In 2009, he painted a memorable portrait of
Harry Patch, who was the oldest man in Europe and the last surviving combat soldier of the First World War from any country.
He has accompanied HRH The Prince and Princess of Wales - as a trip artist - on a number of overseas trips in 1990, 1991, 1993, 2004, and 2010. I'd love to see his sketchbooks!
The de Laszlo Foundation Award (£3,000)
The de Laszlo Foundation award, worth £3,000 and sponsored by the de Laszlo Foundation, aims to encourage young artists. It is awarded, together with a silver medal, to an artist under thirty five years old judged to have submitted the best portrait.
The Winner of The de Laszlo Foundation Award 2019 is Joshua Waterhouse who entered his portrait painting via the open entry. It's a fascinating painting which is part portrait and part still life - with both being painted extremely well. I loved the Holbein blue background.
The portrait is of Jack Stanger, a retired aeronautical engineer.
Commissioned by the Stanger family, the painting depicts its subject tinkering with a grasshopper escapement clock he made from scratch, surrounded by the paraphernalia of an engineer’s workshop. The unusual silhouette in the background is a nod to the engineer’s involvement in Concorde during his career.
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Winner of The de Laszlo Foundation Award 2019
The Engineer by Joshua Waterhouse
oil 75 x 92cm (30 x 36 inches) NFS |
Joshua Waterhouse is aged 30, was born in Newcastle in 1989 and currently lives in Camden. He did a Foundation in Art & Design at Edinburgh College of Art, followed by studying Fine Art & French at Aberystwyth University, graduating in 2014 with a First Class Honours. He also spent a year in Paris studying Art History at La Sorbonne.
He is a hyper-realist portrait artist and he likes to paint in oil on wood in a highly meticulous way, producing portraits with a heightened sense of realism, where every surface detail is given equal consideration. He divides his time between working on private commissions and independent projects.
Below is a video of him painting the portrait.
The Engineer from
Joshua Waterhouse on
Vimeo.
The RP Award (£2,000) - on the theme of 'skin'
