PAOTY Series 2024: Review of Final

This year the Final of Portrait Artist of the Year and the Winner's Programme have generated much more commentary than in any of the previous series - around 90% of which was adverse.

The finalists with their portraits completed in the Final

This is why I'm splitting my comments into three separate posts.

• Today - a review about the Final / Commision and the paintings produced by the artists plusthe  result
• Tomorrow, the Winner's Programme and the Commission
• Tuesday - a review of the PAOTY series and approach taken, and why it annoys very many viewers and whether it is really fit for purpose in the context of good practice and the current regulation of television. 

(It was going to be two - but midway through writing this my "dock" jumped from my Macbook to my iPad and refused to come back - which left me a bit stuffed in terms of finishing this post - and it took nearly an hour to get back!)

I'm not sure if this is the right way round - since much of what happened in the Final is essentially down to how the series works. However I'm trying to keep it simple - but that mean there'll be some repetition across the posts.

To make sense of what happened and why people felt as they did, you need to follow the paintings that were made.

Change of Location and Judges

The Final was full of people who were there to watch the Final - and it was the biggest audience I've seen at a Final and I've been to a few.

The Final moved from Battersea Arts Centre to Riverside Studios - a television studio next to Hammsersmith Bridge.  Apparently the date also changed. Apparently because the date changed Kate Bryan was unable to participate as a Judge as she had another commitment.  Instead Isabel Gibbon, the Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Portraiture - National Galleries of Scotland - who commissioned the £10k prize portrait of Lorraine Kelly substituted for her.

There was no announcement about Kate's absence which was very weird.

I'm at a loss as to how on earth this happened if the bookings people at both BAC and within Sky Arts are both competent and do their job properly. The date of the Final (Tuesday 23rd April) was in the original instructions for people wanting to enter the competition.

The Sitters and Set-up

The Terms and Conditions for this competition stated

The Producer may ask all of the Finalists to depict the same Portrait of a Sitter at the Final Location, or each Finalist may be required to depict different Sitters at the Final Location.

It said nothing about what actually happened i.e. this year the Final had two actors as the sitters - Andy Serkis (age 60 from Lord of the Rings) and Lorraine Ashbourne (age 63 - of Margaret Thatcher in the Crown and Bridgerton fame), although only Lorraine got to sit down! They love climbing mountains and had a story about how women climbed mountains in the past - in long skirts. Hence they were dressed in 19th century dress accompanied by ropes and "stuff" for climbing. They looked incredibly drab! 

(Whoever thought this set-up was a great idea needs to be taken aside for a very detailed talking to to as to all the reasons it wasn't. Yet again ).

They were told they had an extra hour - for painting an extra person! (more comments later!)

It was evident from what the artists said on entering the studio and their faces when two sitters walked in that they had NOT been told in advance about the change of arrangement. 

In practical terms, the artists had turned up with supports for doing a portrait of one person and were now being asked to do two. That's just plain unfair in my book. I could use more explicit terms.

Put simply, this is not acceptable in relation to good practice for people participating in a television competition. Which I shall comment further on tomorrow.

Was it likely to promote a good outcome? Good question - which again I'll address in the post about the series - and what needs addressing.

The Artists

In order of their heat, they are

• Paul Lee (Instagram) - review of Episode 1 - a visual effects animator working for the feature film industry who lives in Tunbridge Wells. He has a fine art degree specialising in painting. He returned to oil painting in 2022 and has exhibited with national art societies.
• Brogan Bertie (Instagram) - review of Episode 3 - age 29, he lives in Margate. He has a BA (Hons) in Illustration and Visual Media from London College of Communication and worked in freelance illustration and animation until moving to Margate and training in leatherwork with Cope Studio and beginning to paint. He started painting in oils for the first time in the last year.
• Jennifer Anderson (Instagram) - review of Episode 4 - age 49, a professional portrait painter who lives in Glasgow and paints on metal. She has a 1st class honors degree in Fine Art (painting) from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee and has exhibited widely throughout the UK and internationally in New York, Singapore, Florida, Zurich, and Toronto and received a number of awards. She's very experienced at working on commission and has produced a number of portraits for Oxford Colleges and other universities and was selected for the BP Portrait Prize back in 2009. 

So basically a couple of middle aged artists with degrees in painting and a much younger artist with a background in illustration who has only recently taken up painting - and painting in oil.

(I listed longer profiles of all the artists in The Semi Finalists - Artist of the Year 2024. )

The Portrait Paintings

There are two sets of paintings in the final 

• the painting produced during the filming on Final Day and
• another painting which they had been asked to produce  after the semi-finals.

Many of those watching the series always seem to expect the Final to be decided on the basis of the quality of the painting produced while being filmed.

This is not the case. If anything, the painting in the Final is the less important of the two paintings. It has all the problems associated with painting to a timeslot

• decisions about cropping are determined by the amount of time to paint
• the level of finish is determined by the artist's normal style and the way in which they approach the background

The Final Paintings 

These are the paintings produced during the Final.

Paul Lee

This is actually the weakest painting I've seen by Paul in this series to date. He's had a good go at the double portrait - but it lacks his strength in tones as well as colour. It's also not helped by the electric blue background given the subtlty - one might say drabness - of the clothing.

If they had tried to provide a set up and sitters which would NOT appeal to Paul, I don't think they could have done better.

Brogan Bertie

I'm not providing a close-up but one of the commentators had a family member who characterised the two people in this portrait as "Worzel Gummidge with a witch".

There were lots of things wrong with this painting 

• two different size heads (possibly due to merging two photos without correcting for scale?)
• a caricature approach
• brushmarks which were really brutal

If I was Lorraine I'd pay to have this one destroyed and never displayed again.

I'm sure none of the above was intended by Brogan. However he lacks the experience to cope with a change to two sitters and completing a painting of two people in five hours. That said an awful lot of people would struggle to produce a good likeness in that time.

Jennifer Anderson - with the portrait the sitters chose

I didn't blame Jennifer in the least for choosing to do a diptych of two heads - as she is most interested in the face and head and getting a likeness and she likes painting on metal - and it looks as if the supports she had with her would not have accommodated a double portrait.

The likeness was astounding and the eyes were amazing. 

As a number of external people commentating on the competition afterwards, it was also very evident that this was the best painting on the day.

In SUMMARY: what was produced - in terms of scope, colour, tone, and finish - was essentially down to what was dictated and provided by the production team and not the artists. 

Which seems a pretty "poor show" for an art competition.

To all those who said Jennifer did not paint to the brief....

It's been the habit of very many finalists in PAOTY to only draw/paint the head and shoulders of the sitter in the final. Indeed I could show you many series of paintings produced by the winner of a series which only shows portraits of the head and shoulders of different people - as indeed happened last year with Wendy Barrett (see below). For example, Wendy always focused on the sitter, and made her backgrounds very neutral and undistracting.

Paintings by last year's winner - Wendy Barrett
from left: submission, heat painting, painting in the final, semi-final painting,
commission for the final

At the end, the sitter(s) get to decide which painting they'd like to take home.

In this instance, we had a couple who openly admitted that they agreed on nothing and it appeared had completely different tastes. They both had a mutter in the background before deciding which one they wanted - by pointing at it - to see if they came to the same decision.

I wasn't in the least bit surprised to see that they BOTH decided they wanted the diptych - the two portraits by Jennifer Anderson!

No second thoughts about which portrait they liked best!

a diptych oil painting on metal of Lorraine Chase and Andry Serkis
by Jennifer Anderson 
(completed in five hours in the Final of PAOTY Series 11 2024)

The "Commission" Paintings

In my opinion, the Commission Portrait Paintings are actually the deciders in this competition.  That's to the extent that the artist had not already submitted a commission quality self portrait as a submission - which Paul almost had but the other two had not. It's not so much that they confirm what may have been indicated during the painting in the final - as the provide a clear indication of what the artist is capable of.

Prior to Covid, the Commission Portraits used to be, if I remember correctly. of famous people local to where the artist lived. I particularly remember an absolutely fabulous portrait of Cleo Laine by Duncan Shoosmith. A portrait which will live long in my memory.

Cleo Laine by Duncan Shoosmith (commission for Final of PAOTY 2019)

The thing for the viewing public and those watching the final in person is that they all know who these people are - and what they look like and hence can make an assessment of whether or not they are a good portrait.

That's simply not the case - to the same extent - with the nearest and dearest. The viewing public at the Final have never seen them before and those at home get fleeting views of them.

However, I rather suspect that having switched to "nearest and dearest" during Covid - and made a saving on sitters fees as a result, the production company preferred to make a bigger profit rather than go back to famous sitters - who tend not to come free when they're working.

The artist has an absolute choice over the size of the commission, who is in it and how they set them up.

In this instance:

• Paul painted his fiancee bundled up in a colourful blanket outside reading a book
• Brogan painted his partner Stef
• Jennifer painted her sister who is also creative

Below are the commission paintings seen next to the paintings in the Final.

Paul lee with his two paintings

I feel that Paul's fiancee is very possibly a reluctant sitter. We see relatively little of her - and also cannot see her eyes - even though I do like the very colourful blanket and the way it is painted. It's certainly not an attention grabbing "I do great commissions" painting. 

There again, I think that he also needs more experience in working from life and doing commissions.

Brogan Bertie with his two paintings

Brogan's commission painting of his partner Stef demonstrates his apparent obsession with large legs/thighs but is noticeably much better than his painting in the final.

When he has the time, his mark-making is much more considered. His colouration is also very interesting.  I do however feel he is creating art rather than a portrait. I don't think he's actually that interested in a likeness for example.

To my mind, he's a painter "on his way" to a professional career but who still needs to do a lot more paintings before he's developed a a strong portfolio demonstrating how he paints which might then allow him to be confident and capable of taking on various professional commissions.

Except I think he still has one eye on Freud who painted people because he liked to paint people - but he didn't paint on commission. 

Jennifer Anderson with her two paintings

Jennifer is, in my opinion, by far the most experienced portrait painter and has a huge talent for getting a good likeness and producing portraits that people will like.

That's one of the main reason she has been a professional portrait painter for many years. That's also the reason she will continue to get a steady stream of commissions into the future - and I think rather more than she's had in the past following this programme.

However, I do not think she played her best hand in this competition - in terms of what the Judges seem to like. She has produced a larger painting - of commission standard - which is very much like the way she paints her commissions for Oxford Colleges and the like. While exquisite and tender it is subdued and not exciting. 

Tai does like to get excited by smooshing large gobs of oil paint around - like he has done in the past......

The Winner of Portrait Artist of the Year 2024

The winner was, of course Brogan Bertie. Or as some people said, you knew who the winner was as soon as he was in the Final.

I think he's a nice and very talented chap - who got this honour rather too early. I do hope he doesn't get pressurised into going to fast when he still needs to take it slow and progress with his portrait painting.

One of the things I liked best is the way Jennifer was really pleased for him.....

The announcement of Portrait Artist of the Year

Brogan Bertie is winner of Portrait Artist of the Year 2024