Posting my photographs of artists with their portraits selected for the the HSFK Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery is an absolutely mammoth exercise. This year I confess I found it daunting!
I've been doing photos of the artists with their portraits in the Portrait Award exhibition for very many years - and it's not a post I want to give up on doing. However this year
- I took more photographs than ever more
- and was posting in the June Heatwave which then became the July Heatwave - so starting this post has been somewhat daunting for me as I don't function at all well in heat (I've no thyroid and the medication for normal times does not seem to be so effective in constant very hot weather)
That's why why I've taken so long to start it in this heatwave which has been running since the exhibition opened!
In the end I've decided to go with the same format as last year - which has been amended to make it more manageable. Each group now gets its own post
- Portraits of Children (and Parents)
- Portraits of Older People
- Self Portraits
- Portraits of Women
- Portraits of Men
- Portraits of Groups
This also allows people intending to paint a subject akin to one of those
groups to look at what the competition which got selected looked like this
year.
I'm also posting larger images to my
Making A Mark Facebook Page
with shorter profiles.
The profiles are part based on those developed for my two former posts and part based on the labels in the gallery
- Selected Artists (Part 1: A-H) for The Portrait Award 2026 at the National Portrait Gallery
- Selected Artists (Part 2: I - Y) for The Portrait Award 2026 at the National Portrait Gallery
You can
vote for the People's Choice Award
at the Gallery and also online.
The exhibition continues at the National Portrait Gallery until 7th October 2026 - and then goes on tour.
Portraits of Children (and Parents)
One of the things I noticed about this year's exhibition was how many
more portraits there were children and parents. There are eight
portraits of children (and parents) in total in the exhibition.
I'm used to seeing the odd child but not this many. Interestingly
- they make for some of the most relaxed looking portraits
- they also seem to be connected to the artist wanting to record forever a time that is passing - which is a jolly good reason for a portrait
TIP: Note that, with the exception of one portrait, the artist is painting their own child / children.
Adebanji Alade
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Copycats, 2025 by Adebanji Alade © Adebanji Alade |
Adebanji Alade PROI - (First Time Exhibitor) B. 1972 in Nigeria. He did an HND
in fine art at Yaba College of Technology, in Nigeria followed by a diploma in portraiture at Heatherley's School of Fine Art, London.
Adebanji is a professional artist, teacher, author and television presenter (BBC One Show). He has a studio on Lots Road in
Chelsea, London. He is also the founder of The Addictive Sketcher movement, seen on television and in books. His work has been seen in numerous exhibitions including the annual exhibitions of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (2007-2026) and he is now the current President of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters.
I first met Adebanji years and years ago. I think I've known him almost as long as I've had this blog! I've also seen this portrait before - and I think it's wonderful. It was exhibited at the Annual Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters last November and it just blew me away.
His family have always been a very big part of who Adebanji is and this
is a really great record of his two kids painting with him at home when
they were small.
The viewer's eye darts across the canvas, delighting in details such as the translucent drapes, the glossy reflection on the television screen and the range of colour cluttered across the domestic interior. Portraying himself and his children engrossed in the act of painting, Alade 'reveals how children copy their parents, whether good or bad, they are copying what they see more than what they are told!'I expect his next submission to be of his lovely wife!
Frances Bell
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Turning Thirteen, 2025 by Frances Bell © Frances Bell |
- Her portrait is of her daughter as she becomes a teenager - who very sportingly turned up to the press view dressed in the clothes she wore for the sitting (given she was about to grow out of them!) - with a slight change in footwear
- Classically trained in Florence, Frances works in a traditional way with a contemporary style. She always paints from life, using the sight-size technique, over a few sittings - either in her studio or visiting clients
- Frances is a member of the
- Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI),
- the Royal Society of Portrait Painters (RP) and
- The Contemporary British Portrait Painters (CBPP).
- She exhibits internationally - notably with the Portrait Society of America where she has won a number of prizes - such as the William F Draper Grand Prize and People's Choice Award at the PSA's International Competition in 2025.
- When not exhibiting, she is very busy painting commissions in both portraiture and landscape.
Frances has been a full time professional painter since 2004, taking commissions all over the world for individuals, family’s and institutions. Frances has won over 25 Awards for her work and has participated in many exhibitions in the UK and internationally.
Jane Brodie
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7 weeks of Dadad, 2026 by Jane Brodie oil on linen © Jane Brodie |
Jane Brodie is Previous exhibitor (2024). b.1987, now based in London and the Peak
District.
- She graduated with a BSc in Architecture in 2009 and has since worked in the Art Department for film. She also has a Set Design career where she works as an Art Director.
- She is also a figurative artist and her practice encompasses painting and drawings, often portraits in oils.
- She is currently following an MA fine art course.
Her portrait is of her partner and their new baby who is 7 weeks old.
Her intention was to capture her family as they begin a new journey and
I think this won't be the last painting of her child.
Apparently the secret formula to getting your portrait accepted is to
get your Mum to take it in for you.
Thomas Ehretsmann
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The Waves, 2025 © Thomas Ehretsmann |
Thomas Ehretsmann (Previous exhibitor 2016, 2017 and 2019; 2nd prizewinner in 2017).
His hyperrealist and sensitive portrait "The Waves" is of his son on a beach. He developed it from both sketches from life and photographs.
I'm very used to seeing Thomas exhibiting at the National Portrait Gallery and never ever surprised to see him back again. His portraits are always hyperrealist and beautifully painted - as indicated by the number of times he has been selected (that's a very select group) and the fact he's won a second prize.
If you're coming to the NPG to see the exhibition, his portrait is two to the right of Frances Bell's.
Thomas is French and describes himself as a painter, draughtsman and
illustrator.
He was born in 1974 and grew up in Thann, in Eastern France. He
completed his studies at the School of Decorative Arts in Strasbourg in
1998 and has led a successful career in illustration since then.
His illustrative work has won Gold Medals and been featured in the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Elle Magazine and various European and American books and journals.
Frances Featherstone
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Madonna and Child, 2026 Oil on linen © Frances Featherstone |
Frances Featherstone
(b.1976) is a British artist with a First Class BA (hons) Degree in
Fine Art. She also has a postgraduate qualification in interactive
multimedia at Bath Spa University. She very much appears to be "one to
watch". I won't be surprised to see getting selected again.
She works from a studio Groombridge in Kent. In 2025 she won the Maire Ragnhild Hollingsworth Prize for Oil Painting Prize at The Royal Academy of Arts' Summer Exhibition. She is represented by Arcadia Contemporary in New York where her solo show in 2025 was a sell out!
Maybe because her work has a unique perspective?
From the Perspective of the Angels is an ongoing series of oil paintings that recontextualises the traditional figurative interior. Observed from an uncompromising aerial vantage point, the domestic spaces and figures are flattened into geometric tapestries of colour, pattern, and light.Her portrait is a rather vertiginous top-down view of Eugenia and her baby. It maps the geography of the space - from the fabric folds of the bed to the geometric patterns of the tiled floor. The work is full of detailed, personalised symbolism, noted in the crochet bracelet which represents the sitter's profession to the lentils on her teacup, tokens of wealth and prosperity.
Her work has been seen in solo exhibitions in the UK and US and in
group exhibitions including the International ARC Salon Competition
2024 and 2025 and the Discerning Eye 2021.
Ros Koch
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The Age of Adolescence Oil on board, 2024 © Ros Koch |
This is another Mum and teenager painting - although this time much
smaller than the one by Frances. However it demonstrates beautiful
painting of light within a very restrained palette of fairly neutral
colours. For me it very effectively conveys sunshine and summer
evenings.
This is what the label says about it
The artist Ros Koch depicts their daughter outside with the sunlight behind her using the technique of chiaroscuro, or 'light- dark', to convey the transition between childhood and adulthood. Koch embraces the physicality of the paint and applies it as a sculptural material by using a variety of brush strokes and a palette knife to carve away wet layers to create an air of luminosity around the sitter's hair
Other portraits of children and parents
- Julia's Stare, 2025 by Liam Barden - Painter and Teacher living in Folkestone. Co-Owner of @bardenartschool
- Eid: Portrait of my wife and daughter, 2026 by Colin Watson - (Previous Exhibitor 1991, 1994, 1995, 1997) Lives and works in Belfast.
Next post is about paintings of older people - and includes the second prizerwinner.
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