Another Portrait Competition - for Self Portraits

The biennial Self Portrait Prize - sponsored by The Ruth Borchard Collection - opened its Call for Entries yesterday.

The deadline for entries is 2nd May 2025.

From the artworks submitted the 2025 prize judges will select

• a winner of the £10,000 Ruth Borchard Prize and
• a number of distinguished entries will be acquired for the "Next Generation Collection".

Below you can find:

• a synopsis of what I think about the exhibition 
• a summary of what you need to know to enter.

You don't have to be a portrait artist to enter. Just an artist capable of producing an interesting self portrait.

The Self Portrait Prize: What I think

The aim of this biennial art competition is to promote and celebrate the art of the self portrait.

So far as I am aware, this is the ONLY self-portrait competition which has been going for a while. Other self portrait competitions pop up from time to time, but none last.

This one offers the following features which I think makes it very credible:

• The biennial Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Prize was launched in 2011. The website contains links to the past competitions. The winners to date are:
• 2011: Celia Paul
• 2013: Thomas Newbolt
• 2015: Shanti Panchal
• 2017: Benjamin Ogbebor
• 2019: David Dawson
• 2021: Lucy Jones
• 2023: Colin Davidson

• It offers a prize of £10,000 - which, for me, is the threshold value for taking an art competition seriously. Notwithstanding all those who do seem to have forgotten that we've had a fair bit of inflation of late (as in the Portrait Artist of the Year Award of a £10,000 Commission should now be offering nearer £15,000 given the number of years it's been offered)!
• It is sponsored by The Ruth Borchard Collection. Ruth Borchard (1910-2000) was a German writer who decided, at the end of the 1950s, to start a collection of self-portraits by artists.  She had a budget (£21 guineas) and collected 100 by 1971. READ MORE about she went in search of artists on the website. 
• The panel of judges for each competition include those with serious credibility in this field - as well as some who might be thought of coming "from left field"
• The exhibition is generally held in a reputable art gallery - and this year it will be the Southampton Art Gallery.

That and the fact that I enjoyed visiting the exhibition when it was held in London. What I particularly liked about it was the criteria are very open and the artists take advantage of this - and consequently there is 

• more diversity in approaches to the self portrait
• a huge range in the nature of the self portraits selected for exhibition - from size to the wide variety of media employed in artwork on view

It's very much for those who like to be innovative and dare to be different - as the first prize (see above) in the 2023 competition exemplified. Or as one commentator put it - it includes artists who like pushing the boundaries!

You can see examples of artwork in the 2015 and 2019 below - and see more on the website.

View of the 2015 Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Prize 2015 Exhibition at Piano Nobile

This is a video about the 2021 Self Portrait Exhibition

Ruth Borchard Portrait Prize and Exhibition 2023

The Winner of the £10,000 Ruth Borchard Prize was announced last week - and the exhibition was opened.

This post is about:

• the winner of the £10000 Ruth Borchard Prize 2023
• the Exhibition - Online
• the Self Portraits - the good and less good aspects
• the lack of an Archive

Sadly, for those of use who used to visit the exhibition of diverse self-portraits by a varied collection of artists, theexhibition is only available ONLINE ONLY at present - until December 2023.

However there will be  a curated selection of distinguished and shortlisted artworks (that means NOT all the selected art) on display in an exhibition at The Atkinson Museum, Southport, from September - December 2023. The exhibition will coincide with the Liverpool Arts Biennial in 2023.

Ruth Borchard Prize 2023 (£10,000)

The winner is Colin Davidson 

Colin Davidson is a contemporary artist, living and working near Belfast, Northern Ireland. Since graduating in 1991 from the University of Ulster with a first-class honours degree, he has structured his practice in themes, and since 2010 his focus has been on painting grand scale portraits, which have won widespread recognition and many international awards. As well as numerous commissions, Davidson’s portrait sitters have included Brad Pitt, Ed Sheeran, Liam Neeson, Brian Friel, Sir Kenneth Branagh, Christy Moore, Dame Mary Peters, Gary Lightbody, Marketa Irglova, Glen Hansard, Mark Knopfler and Seamus Heaney. His work is held in many public and corporate collections worldwide (from his website)

This was his winning artwork which he calls a 3D Painting. I guess, this is his original digital submission and it does suggest scale rather effectively - and is maybe a bit bigger than people imagined?

Self Portrait (2022) by Colin Davidson

Acrylic paint and oil paint on Polylactic acid

105 x 78 x 54 cm | 41 3/8 x 30 3/4 x 21 1/4 in

POA

As a painter, I am always looking for opportunities to use paint in new ways. To exploit the myriad different possibilities which oil paint, in particular, has to offer. Here is a recent self-portrait. I suppose it’s a big, 3-dimensional selfie. But it is, first and foremost, a framed, wall-hung painting. Using the medium of acrylic and oil paint itself to sculpt with.

The announcement was made via video and can be viewed on:

  

The work was selected from over 1800 entries by this years judges who included: 

• Gabriele Finaldi (Director of the National Gallery), 
• Melanie Gerlis (Financial Times Art Market Columnist), 
• Andrea Rose (former Director of the British Council), 
• Stephen Whittle (Principal Manager The Atkinson Museum), 
• Lucy Jones (2021 Prize Winner) and 
• David Borchard (grandson of Ruth Borchard).

(When they say "included" does that mean other people were involved too - and if so who are these Judges?)

 

The Ruth Borchard Exhibition - Online

The Self-Portrait Prize Online Exhibition presents a selection of noteworthy entries to the 2023 competition. It highlights the diversity of contemporary self-portraiture and the continuing importance of this uniquely personal subgenre of art. The Online Exhibition includes a cross-section of self-portraits from around the world, made by artists at all stages of their careers in a range of media

The Online Exhibition is available from 23 June to 20 December 2023

Given the Prize is run on a triennial basis, all the portraits have been made in the last three years.

What is excellent about the online exhibition is that:

Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize 2023: Last Call for Entries

I missed the announcement of the Call for Entries for the £10,000 Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize 2023 - hence why this is a "Last Call for Entries" as the deadline for all entries is Midnight on the 31st March 2023!

From the artworks submitted the 2023 prize judges will select 

• a winner of the £10,000 Ruth Borchard Prize and 
• a number of distinguished entries will be acquired for the Next Generation Collection.

Before you start reading you might want to know that 

• the fee for an entry is £38 and 
• this competition attracts artists from across the spectrum including professional and prize-winning portrait artists.

If you're interested, you can see examples of the works selected to hang in the exhibition of the Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize 2019 at The Kings Place - in an album on my Facebook Page.

one wall in the Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize 2019 Exhibition
at The Kings Place, Kings Cross, London

Who can enter?

All ages and abilities can enter. Individuals under the age of 16 wishing to enter are required to have consent from a parent or legal guardian.

Artists of all backgrounds, established and emerging, are invited to enter. Even if this is your first ever self-portrait or artistic creation we welcome your contribution.

What can you enter?

You can use any size and medium. I've seen some huge works in past exhibitions!

However these are the details in the T&Cs

• The artwork must be a self-portrait. 
• All variations of work – figurative or abstract, alone or in a group, from life or from memory – will be accepted.
• The artwork must have been created in the year of or after 2000.
• There are no restrictions of size of work.
• Multi-part works, i.e. works in the form of a diptych or triptych etc., are eligible and will be regarded as one work.

We welcome a wide variety of media, including but not restricted to; painting, drawing, digital art, photography, sculpture, tapestry and ceramics. 

an exhibitor in the 2019 Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize Exhibition
(happy to give credits if anybody recognises the work)

How to enter

All works must be submitted online via the Self Portrait Prize Zealous portal. Access to the portal can be found at: https://ruthborchard.org.uk/self-portrait-prize/

You can enter more than once - but every entry requires a separate submission.

To enter you MUST:

• upload a high quality image of your self portrait
• provide all the details about the artwork
• complete the application form and agreement to T&Cs. This needs to include as supporting information:
• Artistic Statement – maximum 200 words – this is a space for you to tell the judges anything you feel is relevant to the application and/or about you or your artwork.
• CV (optional) - Whether you are a full time professional artist or have a completely alternative career the option to upload a CV allows the judges to find out more about the individual behind the artwork
• gallery representation (optional - not considered as part of the judging process - which suggest the above two are!)
• personal details and contact information
• pay the fee for entry

This is £38.00 from a UK based bank account and £48.00 if payment is being made from overseas.2 Ruth Borchard Collection and Self-Portrait Prize are funded by a charitable foundation and the submission fee goes a small way to covering the cost of running the Prize.

View of the 2015 Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Prize 2015 Exhibition at Piano Nobile

If selected, how your work will be exhibited

From the submissions 250 artists will be invited to participate in an exclusive online selling exhibition. Shared and promoted via 

• an exclusive Ruth Borchard Collection virtual gallery and 
• Artsy online viewing room 

this gives artists the opportunity to have their work seen by international collectors.

If you win your artwork will hang in a curated selection of distinguished and shortlisted artworks to be exhibited at The Atkinson Museum, Southport, from September - December 2023. The exhibition will coincide with the Liverpool Arts Biennial.

The last exhibition in 2021 was at Coventry Cathedral.

So far as I'm aware there's no plans to bring any sort of physical exhibition to London.

The Judges

 The judges include 

• Gabriele Finaldi (Director of the National Gallery), 
• Melanie Gerlis (Financial Times Art Market Columnist), 
• Andrea Rose (former Director of the British Council), 
• Stephen Whittle (Principal Manager The Atkinson Museum), 
• Lucy Jones (2021 Prize Winner) and 
• David Borchard (grandson of Ruth Borchard)

These are the Judges from 2021 talking about the artwork entered into the exhibition. It gives you an insight into how Judges can look at artwork and what their expectations are - albeit this year those views might all be different because it's a different set of Judges.

Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Prize 2021 film from Ruth Borchard Collection on Vimeo.