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.
- 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
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.
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| View of the 2015 Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Prize 2015 Exhibition at Piano Nobile |
This is a video about the 2021 Self Portrait Exhibition
