Call for Entries: 6th Triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2022

A call for entries for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2022 was published a little while ago. This is the 6th time this triennial competition and exhibition has been run.

In brief:

• This is a very prestigious portrait competition - which happens every three years
• The intention of the competition is that it should reflect American Portraiture today.
• Consequently entries are limited to one only from adult portrait painters living and working in the United States and associated territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands).
• the timeline is somewhat drawn out
• the deadline for entries is January 29, 2021

Note: The Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition is made possible by the Virginia Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition Endowment, established by Virginia Outwin Boochever and continued by her children.

Call for Entries

In limiting entries to Americans, it also seeks to provide a pointer as to intent.

What I very much like about this competition is its aim of engaging contemporary portraiture with the social and political landscape of the United States - and making it relevant to current times. Which should make for an interesting batch of entries given recent events and upcoming changes. contemporary 

Artists are invited to submit portraits in any media for consideration in the sixth triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. As with past editions, the competition seeks to broaden the definition of portraiture and highlight the genre’s relevance in society and contemporary art.

There are two important points to note. The last competition changed the rules - presumably to open up scope for contemporary portraiture which provides social commentary with a historical perspective

Artworks may originate from direct encounters between the artist and the sitter or draw upon existing imagery or archival research in response to history.

Next a clear intent as to the scope of the competition - and hence the entries

Artists are encouraged to think about portraiture's potential to engage with the social and political landscape of our time.

Prizes

The awards on offer total $42,000 (£31,250) and are as follows:

• First Prize: $25,000 and a commission to portray a remarkable living American for the National Portrait Gallery’s collection. (Here are the last four commissions - one of which has become very famous i.e. Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama by Amy Sherald)
• Second Prize: $7,500
• Third Prize: $5,000. 
• People's Choice Award: $500
• Commendations: Up to four additional artists will be commended for their work and will receive $1,000 each. 

Jurors

The Jurors are as follows

The Jurors of Outwin 2022

Who can submit a portrait?

Don't even think about entering this competition unless you are an artist who is 

• at least 18 years old (by the time of entry) 
• lives and works in one of: the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

What can you submit?

The constraints on entries are as follows:

Hugo Crosthwaite wins 2019 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition with an animation.

The Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2019 - held on a triennial basis at the National Portrait Gallery (part of the Smithsonian) in Washington DC - announced both prizewinners and selected artists last week.

One frame from the first prizewinner's three minute stop-motion drawing animation
reflecting on the challenges of migration

The intention of the competition is that it should reflect American Portraiture today.

Every three years, artists living and working in the United States are invited by the museum to submit one of their recent portraits to a panel of experts. The selected artworks reflect the compelling and diverse approaches contemporary artists are using to tell the American story through portraiture.

I wrote about the Call for Entries: 2019 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition back in June 2018.

Forty-six portraits were selected by a blind jury on merit from this open call, which generated more than 2,600 entries (Percentage rate of those selected: 1.76% )

The Outwin 2019 presents work in a variety of media by artists from 14 states across the U.S., Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico.

What I'm most impressed with - as I am with the Archibald Prize for Portraiture in Australia - is the standard of portraiture. Every time I see the artwork in one or the other of these two competitions I think a rethink of the BP Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery in London. (of which more anon!)

You can see artwork in the exhibition on the website

Prizewinners

The winning artworks reflect the compelling and diverse approaches contemporary artists are using to tell the American story through portraiture.

First Place: Hugo Crosthwaite

The prize is

• $25,000 cash prize and 
• a commission to create a portrait of a remarkable living American for the National Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection

Hugo Crosthwaite, San Diego, California
A Portrait of Berenice Sarmiento Chávez
Stop-motion drawing animation (3:12 min.), 2018

"A Portrait of Berenice Sarmiento Chávez" (2018) is part of a series based on artist Hugo Crosthwaite’s interviews with people who are living in or are passing through Tijuana. The resultant improvised drawings represent the collective memories and oral histories from that part of the Mexico-U.S. border. Set to the soundtrack of a dissonant guitar and a raspy voice singing in Spanish, this animated video reveals the dreams and experiences of a young woman who seeks to take part in the American Dream. Black ink, gray wash, and white paint—applied by the invisible hand of the artist— take turns to expose Berenice Sarmiento Chávez’s humble background and the threat of violence in her home country that pushed her to immigrate to the United States. The film suggests that the immigration journey is seeded with constant danger.

Crosthwaite is the first Latinx artist to receive this prestigious award since the national competition was founded in 2006. (Note: Latinx is a gender-neutral neologism, sometimes used instead of Latino or Latina to refer to people of Latin American cultural or racial identity in the United States.)

Second Place ($7,500): Sam Comen