Tuesday, June 03, 2025

Shortlist for the £66K HSFK Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery

This is about the three artists shortlisted for the 43rd edition of its prestigious annual Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in London. 
The three shortlisted portraits are:
  • Cliff, Outreach Worker (2024) by Tim Benson
  • A Life Lived (2024) by Moira Cameron
  • Memories (2024) by Martyn Harris
....of which more below 

(PS I've been distracted by other things going on for some days hence why this is late.)

This year’s shortlist was 
  • selected from over 1,314 anonymous entries from around the world, 
  • with 46 portraits in total chosen for final display 
  • in a free exhibition open from 10 July to 12 October 2025
Since its inception, the competition has attracted over 40,000 entries from more than 100 countries and the exhibition has been seen by over 6 million people.
Prizes are:
  • 1st prize of £35,000
  • 2nd prize winner will receive £12,000 
  • 3rd prize winner will receive £10,000
  • the winner of the Young Artist Award will receive £9,000. This award aims to profile talent and help support the career development of a young artist.
A commission will also be awarded to an artist in a new arrangement which I very much like. My guess is it will significantly help the commission team when trying to match sitter to artist. It's always been the case in the past that those who have exhibited in the Portrait Award might be asked to do a commission.
  • this is now a bi-annual award, 
  • all artists chosen to exhibit in 2024 and 2025’s Portrait Award exhibitions will be considered for this commission.
Judges included:
  • Professor Dorothy Price FBA - art historian and academic at The Courtauld Institute of Art;
  • Maggi Hambling - visual artist; (her portraits for the NPG include one of my favourites Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin)
  • Peter Brathwaite - opera singer, artist and writer; 
  • Rosie Broadley - Joint-Head of Curatorial and Senior Curator of 20th Century Collections at the National Portrait Gallery
  • Rosie Wilson - NPG Director of Programmes and Partnerships, 
This annual Portrait Award has had a number of sponsors in its time and this is the second year that the Award is being supported by the solicitors Herbert Smith Freehills (who have an oil and gas team whose clients include BP - make of that what you will given the last sponsor who was more or less forced to stand down!).

They are combining with another law firm and are now known as Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer. Hence the Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award is being renamed the Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award.

Here's where I stand on the sponsor name. It's ludicrous. It's not a name which rolls off the tongue. People can never ever remember it and now they've added another name in!

Which is precisely why I will continue to refer to it as The Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery, sponsored by Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer

Or maybe, just maybe, the "HSFK".....

Shortlisted Artists


I start the profile of each one with my summary comment. I'm usually pretty good at guessing who's going to win and this year I don't know. I can make a case for any of them. I suspect I'm going to like some of the portraits by the other selected artists better.

The italicised quotes are from the NPG Press Release and I assume are words constructed from what the artists have said about the sitter and their process.

Tim Benson for "Cliff, Outreach Worker"


Tim Benson, who I know well, is the only person who has previously been selected for the Portrait Award and, in the past, this has often been a very good indicator of who wins the top prize.  He scores well also for representation of two different elements of diversity - which seems to have become a popular way of rating artwork of late. I'm not a fan of the background which I find distracting.

Cliff, Outreach Worker, 2024 by Tim Benson
(Oil on canvas 1520mm x 1220mm)
 © Tim Benson

  • Age: 47 (b. London 1978)
  • Nationality: British
  • Occupation: artist; current President of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters in London; Portraiture Tutor - Royal Academy of Arts. He has won international commissions and taken part in various group and solo exhibitions. 
  • Current home: London
  • Art education: Middlesex University, Glasgow School of Art, and Byam Shaw School of Art. 
  • Previous appearances in this award:  2012, 2020 and 2024. 
  • Previous notable portraits for this award: none
  • Website: https://www.timbenson.co.uk/
  • Title / Media: Cliff, Outreach Worker, Oil on canvas 1520mm x 1220mm
For Benson, portrait painting is about storytelling and chronicling experiences. This large scale portrait of London outreach worker Clifford Dobbs was painted as part of a series of paintings depicting people with facial differences. Cliff’s jaw was broken when he was a child and was never re-set, resulting in his facial difference. 

Painting Cliff gave the artist the opportunity to challenge historical notions of beauty in portraiture whilst also advocating for the destigmatisation of facial difference. Due to the sitter’s busy schedule, the portrait was made from sketches and photographs taken in Cliff’s office, as opposed to Benson’s usual process of a single four-hour sitting. Benson works quickly and uses a limited palette, painting straight to canvas with a wide, flat brush that prevents excessive detailing and allows him to ‘sculpt’ the facets of the sitter’s head in thick oils with as few brush strokes as necessary.


Moira Cameron for A Life Lived


With an older woman artist on the jury, one might be forgiven for thinking that an older woman artist might have been favoured for this reason. For me it depends on whether the majority like portraits which are distorted and assembled through layering and scraping. I personally am not a fan. The artist is somebody who is non-traditional practitioner who has not practised as a portrait artist for years. Just an observation.  Some might think that means she's a shoe-in.

A Life Lived, 2024 by Moira Cameron 
(Oil on canvas 220mm x 2000mm)
© Moira Cameron

  • Age: 63 (b.1962 in London to a family of artists)
  • Nationality: British
  • Occupation: artist (This link provides an account of her development as an artist). Her work has been exhibited around the world, including in London, Japan, New York and Switzerland.
  • Current home: London / New York
  • Art education: Ravensbourne College of Art and Chelsea College of Art
  • Previous appearances in this award: None recorded
  • Previous notable portraits for this award: None recorded
  • Website: None
  • Title / Media: A Life Lived, Oil on canvas 220mm x 2000mm
After decades of artistic collaboration, first with her husband, Pop artist David Spiller, then with her son, Xavier, Cameron has returned to her own practice. As part of this newfound independence, she is reimagining paintings she created as a student.
A Life Lived is an evolution of a self-portrait Cameron painted 40 years ago. This large-scale work of the artist reclining in a comfortable armchair shows an older woman who has lived, observed and felt deeply. Her posture conveys quiet fatigue, with shoulders slightly slumped and head tilted in reflection. The lines on her face and the subtle shadows tell a story of time passing and of a life fully experienced. Rather than capturing a single moment in time, the portrait holds a lifetime within it.

Cameron began the new portrait by sketching the image with pastels and spray paints before applying thick layers of oil paint – brushed, palette-knifed, or smeared by hand – followed by more fluid oils. Some areas are scraped, washed away, and repainted, while others are intentionally left bare.


Martyn Harris for "Memories"


One might think that this is the super meticulous very realistic painting - to balance out the styles of the other two. Except it's not. You might be surprised by some of the brushwork. It is however a very good portrait of an older woman and it's nice to see arthritic hands portrayed accurately.
(I have the benefit of being able to look at a larger pic than accessible to most). 

Memories, 2024 by Martyn Harris 
(Oil on board 400mm x 400mm)
© Martyn Harris

  • Age: 60+
  • Nationality: British - from Halesowen
  • Occupation:  a portrait and landscape artist. He became a full-time artist eight years ago, following a career that included jobs as a mechanical engineer and draughtsman. Harris’s works have been selected several times for the Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ annual exhibition.
  • Current home:  Cradley, West Midlands
  • Art education: trained as a mentee under W. R. Jennings
  • Previous appearances in this award: none
  • Previous notable portraits for this award: none
  • Website: https://martynharris.com/
  • Title / Media: "Memories" Oil on board 400mm x 400mm
Harris would often see Gillian from his studio when she visited the Art Yard Gallery. Striking up a friendship, and moved by her vulnerability and introspective expression, he asked if she would sit for a portrait that would reflect on the passage of time and the fragility of ageing. Captured over three sittings, the portrait depicts Gillian in a moment of reflection. Her expression is pensive, with hands clasped in quiet contemplation and eyes downcast, thoughtful and somewhat weary, suggesting a life of many experiences.

Harris makes use of light, shadow and contrast to strengthen the emotional qualities of the piece. The light muted background heightens the sense of isolation, placing Gillian in a world of her own; while the contrast between her pale skin and dark clothes highlights the delicate lines and colours of her face and hands. The work explores themes of loneliness, reflection and human vulnerability, and invites viewers to consider Gillian’s life and story. 

 

The Portrait Award: Reference

These are all my previous blog posts going back to 2007 about this competition

HFS Portrait Award 2024

Gap while the National Portrait Gallery was closed for a major refurbishment - and a subsequent change of sponsor

BP Portrait Award 2020 (this was VIRTUAL EXHIBITION ONLY because of Covid)

BP Portrait Award 2019

BP Portrait Award 2018
BP Portrait Award 2017

BP Portrait Award 2016

Clara Drummond - Winner on 2016

Portrait Award 2015

Susanne du Toit - Winner 2013

BP Portrait Award 2012


Aleah Chapin - Winner in 2012

BP Portrait Award 2011

BP Portrait Award 2010

Posted by Making A Mark on Tuesday, June 03, 2025
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