The Tale of the Portrait Award Catalogue 2026 - and two major mishaps

This is about the debacle of The Portrait Award Catalogue 2026 - and why I do not have a copy.

Portrait Award Catalogue 2026 - as advertised on the NPG website

Every year I usually get the catalogue of The Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery. I use it when writing my review of the exhibition. You'll note no review to date....

However this year there have been two major mishaps

1. The Printing Error
2. The "ready to ship" date.

The Printing Error

This year, 2026, the catalogue, sponsored by Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, was found to have a serious error in the original printed version.

Now printing errors in museum publications are not unheard of

• many are relatively minor (eg a name spelt incorrectly) and 
• they are normally corrected in the next print - 
• and an errata slip put in the edition with the error.

My guess as to why the original catalogue was NOT released at all is that it the error is too significant/important - and this most likely reason is it involves the sponsor's name.

The name that keeps changing. It started as "Herbert Smith Freehills" - and last year it became "Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer".

That's important enough to stop the release of a catalogue.

The alternative might be that the colours were badly wrong. Except, as somebody who used to be responsible for producing marketing material for my professional qualification, I know that sort of error gets caught very easily at the proofs stage. So long as you have somebody competent doing the job and piping up as soon as they spot a problem. 

Approving proofs is the signal to "go to print". 

When I did it, my publications lady did all the checking - but the proofs were signed off by me after I had checked them carefully too. It's much too expensive to get wrong hence all mistakes have to be spotted!

So I can only assume that whoever was responsible for collating, drafting, designing and checking - and double checking and authorising - the catalogue proofs did not do their job properly.

That's a very expensive mistake. That's because once you have approved the proofs, you are agreeing liability for the costs of the print run. Which means NPG will be charged for that error and in effect will have paid for the catalogue twice.

For the record, I did ask what the print error - but was nobody knew and/or was prepared to say.

The "Ready to Ship" date

I was thinking of going into the NPG today to pick up a catalogue. However I wasn't optimistic it would be there (I know how long print runs take - particularly if a job is contracted out to Asian printers as many are - ships take a long time to dock!) so checked the website first.

That's when I found the page related to the Portrait Award Catalogue for sale in the shop.

Which states

Expected to ship from 29 July 2026.

That's seven weeks late - given the exhibition opened to the public on 25th June.

Which leads us to the next issue.....

Details of the Portrait Award Catalogue

The cost of the mistake

The 2024 catalogue is now selling for £10 - which is usually a reduced price.

I'm guessing you can expect there will be a number of the 2026 for sale at a reduced price at some point in the future.

That's because although it will be available for sale for the final 10 weeks of the exhibition at the NPG - and also at 

• Derby Museum and Art Gallery (21 November 2026 - 21 February 2027)
• The Gallery at the Arc, Winchester (5 March - 9 June 2027)

that will not make up for the loss of sales during the most popular time to visit the exhibition i.e. just after it has opened.

This is because the major catalogue sales are always made during the run of the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery - and usually during when it is most visited.

If they ordered the normal print run, my guess is that there will be a lot of catalogues left over.... 

Unless they know the sales per week from the past and made an adjustment.

Having catalogues left over generally leads to them being sold at cost to get them shifted - to recover cost of production at least - thus eliminating the profit which will not be insignificant.

In Conclusion - action required!

It occurs to me that maybe the exhibition publishing side of the National Portrait Gallery publications operation might benefit from a review, in terms of the technicalities of getting publications printed on time and in the right numbers.

I say this also in the context of 

• the Soft Cover version "Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting Catalogue" selling out very fast within the first few days of the exhibition.... Somebody got the estimates of visitors and likely purchases very badly wrong.
• there is no e-catalogue. 

For something like the Portrait Award Catalogue, I'm very bemused as to why they don't sell an e-catalogue version online. 

• First it's a handy way of having the catalogue in front of you while reviewing the exhibition. 
• Second, the website provides the pics - if you know where to look (another major problem) but provides absolutely no details whatsoever about the artist, the painting, how it came about and/or was painted
• Plus the NPG could then sell an e-catalogue all over the world without people needing to incur shipping costs. Think about it - for all the international artists who want to apply, there's an awful lot more who aspire to apply in future.....