Monday, May 18, 2026

Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award 2026: SHORTLIST Announced

This is about the four artists shortlisted for the 44th edition of its prestigious Annual Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award 2026 was  formerly known as the BP Portrait Award and before that the John Player Portrait Award - which is what it was called when I first started visiting.)

Some background
The Portrait Award has earned a reputation as one of the most important platforms for portrait painters. The highly competitive Award encourages artists over the age of 18 to focus upon, and develop, the theme of portraiture in their work. Since its inception, the competition has attracted over 50,000 entries from more than 100 countries and the exhibition has been seen by over 6 million people.
I'm pleased to see the NPG appears to have adopted my name for the competition ie The Portrait Award - as per my comment in this post last year!
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 Shortlist for the £66K HSFK Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery

Selection for the Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award 2026 

This post provides you with information about the four shortlisted artists, named today by the NPG,  and shows you images of their portraits.

Some facts:

  • The Call for Entries produced 1,474 entries from Artists from across the world who uploaded a photograph of their finished painting to the National Portrait Gallery’s Competitions Portal for the initial judging of digital images
  • Specifically, entries were received from 63 countries. 
  • All entries were judged anonymously - which means it'll be interesting to see how many artists previously selected are selected again.
  • The Selection Panel is an ALL FEMALE jury and appears to be "contemporary" in nature. Its members are: 
    • Melissa Blanchflower - Senior Curator at the Turner Contemporary
    • Es Devlin - digital artist and set designer, ;
    • Amy Emmerson Martin - Contemporary Curator at the National Portrait Gallery (previously Assistant Curator of Contemporary British Art at Tate)
    • Mary Evans - artist and Director of the Slade.
  • Artists who made it through the digital judging round were invited to hand-deliver or courier their work to a venue in London for a second, physical round of judging
  • A total of 52 portraits have been chosen for the exhibition which opens from 25 June to 7 October 2026 at the National Portrait Gallery
  • The portraits by the four artists were chosen from the 52 portraits selected for final display. 
  • Prizes comprise:
    • first prize of £35,000 - one of the largest awards for any global art competition. 
    • second prize of £12,000 
    • third prize winner will receive £10,000
    • young artist (aged between 18 and 30) prize- £9,000. This prize aims to profile talent and help support the career development of a young artist - one of the original priorities of The Portrait Award. 

The Shortlisted Portraits


Only one artist has previously been selected for this award/exhibition. Which means three appear to be total newcomers - although they may have previously submitted paintings but not got selected.

Three of the four paintings are concerned with portraits of individuals with a black heritage.

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.

Note: Having researched the artists I am beginning to wonder the extent to which the Judges (and all the shortlisted artists) read the Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award 2026 Rules. Specifically 2.2
2.2 The work entered should be a painting based on a sitting or study from life and the human figure must predominate.

 

What’s Mine is Yours, (2024) by Chloe Cox


What's Mine is Yours, 2024 by Chloe Cox
Oil on canvas, 90 x 60 cm | 35.4 x 23.6 in
© Chloe Cox
  • Name: she also goes by the artist name ‘Cee’ or ‘ArtCee’. 
  • Age: young ??
  • Nationality: British
  • Occupation: she has a full time job and paints on the weekend and in the evening
  • Current home: Manchester
  • Art education: ?
  • Artistic imperative: to represent the BAME community as honestly and sympathetically as possible to increase their sense of belonging in British history, arts and culture.
  • How she works: from https://www.jacksonsart.com/blog/2025/11/05/chloe-cox-real-refined/
I always work from reference photos, and I’ve become quite particular about using my own rather than ones clients provide. For me, it is important to control the lighting so I get the detail I need to paint realistic portraits. I also like to meet the person I’m painting to get a sense of who they are and how they want to be portrayed. My partner is an amazing photographer, so these days we often travel together to meet the sitter. He captures the photos while I direct the composition
From "Artist Interviews, Jackson's Art Prize 2025: Chloe Cox: Real Refined" November 2025
Comedian and art lover Bill Bailey matches foster carers Marva and Lionel with a young artist to create a stunning portrait of the deserving couple.
    • 2023: Chloe was commissioned by King Charles III to create a portrait of Alford Garner (2023)for the Royal Collection, celebrating the legacy and contributions of the Windrush generation to British society
    • 2021: her work featured in the English Heritage commission series Painting our Past: The African Diaspora in England
    • 2020: Winner of the 2020 SAA Young Artist of the Year Award and SAA Young Portrait Artist of the Year Award
  • Website: https://www.chloecoxartist.com/
  • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chloecoxartist/
  • Described as: British hyperrealist portrait painter whose work has garnered national recognition and royal patronage for her intensely realistic portraits of under-represented groups, often people from African-Caribbean communities, which have been widely awarded and exhibited across the UK
In 2024, Cox took part in the BBC documentary series Extraordinary Portraits. It was during the series that she was paired with the sitters in this portrait, Marva and Lionel Warmington, a Birmingham couple who have fostered more than 200 teenagers over the past 30 years. Cox visited their home with the TV crew to learn about their experiences and meet some of their foster children. Conversations form the foundation of Cox’s sittings, giving her time to get to know her sitters.

Cox sketched the composition on the canvas before painstakingly building the portrait with several layers of oil paint, gradually bringing out the light and refining the images with finer brushes. Cox was struck by the balance between the couple, and the sitters are posed holding one another to reflect the harmony within their union that has sustained not just their marriage but has created stability and belonging for hundreds of young people.

 

Jean-Denis, 2025 by Marc Dalessio


This is a portrait produced in a classical way, using a classical four colour palette by a classically trained portrait painter.

This is also the only artist who appears to have explicitly complied with Rule 2.2.

Jean-Denis, 2025 by Marc Dalessio 
Oil on linen 650mm x 500mm
© Marc Dalessio
  • Age: 54 (born 1972 in Los Angeles)
  • Nationality: American (who now lives in France)
  • Occupation: 
    • Plein Air Painter 
    • (latterly) Portrait Artist - working on commission from life and painting fast! I used to check out his blog from time to time. He returned to portrait painting after settling in the southwest of France and renovating a dilapidated artist’s studio, which gave him the light and space he needed for his method of portrait painting.
    • Tutor: - he teaches sight size painting internationally
  • Current home: Gers, France
  • Art education: Charles H. Cecil Studios in Florence from 1992 to 1996.Previous appearances in this award: None
  • How he works:
Dalessio painted his sitter as he arrived, in his elegant black coat and scarf, a sliver of a white shirt just visible beneath. In keeping with his academic, atelier training, the artist paints straight to canvas with a historic four colour palette of white, ochre, red and black oils, sometimes with a red lake for glazing. Dalessio uses the sight-size method, in which the artist stands at a distance to view the picture and subject side by side to attain precise proportions. This highly observational technique allows him to paint with an immediacy that brings into focus the emotional impact of the scene. Though he seldom uses photography as part of his portrait-making, Dalessio filmed Jean-Denis to serve as an aide-mémoire of his subject’s various facial expressions when he was unavailable for sittings.

In Our Borderlands, 2025 by Joel Nichols


In Our Borderlands by Joel Nichols
(Oil on canvas 1220mm x 1520mm)
© Joel Nichols
Rooted in their biracial Jamaican heritage and queer identity, their work explores intimacy, vulnerability, and the politics of representation. Through large-scale portraits and process-based inquiry, Joel challenges fixed narratives and conventional roles between artist, subject, and viewer. Their practice is grounded in a blend of critical thought, and emotional depth, treating art-making as a relational space where care, tension, and the need to see and be seen unfold. Viewing the studio as a borderland, a space for embracing complexity, contradiction, and open-endedness, Joel’s work resists controlling meaning. Instead, it invites viewers to approach with patience and vulnerability, fostering moments of mutual recognition and transformation.

About the Portrait

In Our Borderlands originated in an Oxford dorm room where Nichol’s would gather with friends to foster community through sharing meals and watching films. During one gathering, Nichols noticed how a mirror in the room refracted light in multiple colours across the face of a friend, Jo, and suggested they meet again to revisit the moment in the artist’s studio.

This large-scale portrait began with several days spent sketching before committing to paint. Nichols works slowly in a meticulous process of sustained attentiveness that they liken to an ‘act of care’ towards the subject. The majority of the artist’s time and energy was devoted to capturing Jo’s distinctive, steady gaze and the ephemeral, sometimes photographic qualities of the light using precise, fine brushstrokes and an airbrush. The detail of the figure is offset by a blended, soft-focus background, rendered to near-abstraction to create a depth of field and concentrate all attention upon the sitter. For Nichols, the value of a portrait comes from the process of creation rather than the image itself. As such, their portraits become less about producing a fixed image and more about exploring identity, agency and the dynamics of looking.


Charlie and Magda, (2026) by Michael Slusakowicz



Charlie and Magda, 2026 by Michael Slusakowicz 
Oil on canvas 500mm x 400mm
© Michael Slusakowicz
Charlie and Magda (2026) depicts two of the artist’s friends in a pensive moment. Luminous, stylised leaves and blooms, reflective of the artist’s admiration for the opulent verdure of Paul Gauguin and Henri Rousseau, add a dream-like quality to the emotionally charged scene. 
  • Age: 40ish?
  • Nationality: Polish (born in Krakow)
  • Occupation:
  • Current home: London
  • Art education: Moved to UK in 2005
    • 2008-2011 BA Painting,Camberwell College of Arts/University of the Arts London
    • 2007-2008 Artist in Residence/Manchester College of Art and Technology
    • 2006-2007 Foundation Diploma in Art and Design/Manchester College of Art and Technology
  • how he works:
Slusakowicz typically begins each portrait with sketches and photographs that he uploads to his laptop and turns into a digital collage. He then translates the images onto canvas using crisp, brights oils straight from the tube, sometimes combined with hand-mixed neon paints. For his subjects’ faces, he blends colours to create a smooth transition from one shade to another and uses thin, diluted layers of paint to achieve a translucent effect. 
  • Previous appearances in this award: 2024
  • Previous portraits for this award: 
    • Double Portrait of Clara (2021), was selected for the 2024 Portrait Award.
  • Previous notable portraiture: has exhibited  with Royal Society of Portrait Painters (2021)
  • Website: no website
  • Instagram https://www.instagram.com/michaelslusakowicz/
  • Describes his work
    • an interest in magical realism and the Fauvists’ use of intense colour as a tool of expression,
    • creates surreal, vivid portraits of close friends, inspired by long evenings spent together talking about politics, philosophy and their shared experience as artists.
    • He often paints double or group scenes in which the subjects, pictured amid an abundance of greenery, are interacting in some way.
His work confronts us with a paranormal mystery in each painting.

About this portrait

His starting point for Charlie and Magda was a previously unfinished painting that he coated with a green wash and scanned onto his computer, then juxtaposing the figures and foliage before choosing the final colour palette.


The Portrait Award: Reference


These are all my previous blog posts going back to 2007 about this competition
There were no Portrait Award exhibitions between 2020 (Covid) and 2024 (new sponsor/change of name) due to the renovation of the National Portrait Gallery

HSF Portrait Award 2025

HFS Portrait Award 2024

2023 (no competition)

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 Monday, May 18, 2026
Categories , , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

COMMENTS HAVE BEEN CLOSED AGAIN because of too much spam.
My blog posts are always posted to my Making A Mark Facebook Page and you can comment there if you wish.

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)