This is about "The Winner's Story - Painting Hannah Fry" and the very last episode of Series 12 of Portrait Artist of the Year (2025)
I include this here, because of course this is not painting so much as printmaking. I guess that the good people at Storyvault Films forget that artists and painters are not interchangeable words - and one is a subset of the other.
Either that or they made up this graphic in advance of the series on the basis you might as well get all the titles done at the same time.....
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| Title frame for the Winner's Story - Episode 11 of Series 12 of PAOTY (2025) |
That illustrates how much a PAINTER is expected to be the winner.
Yet this year Chloe Barnes, who is a mono printmaker, won and hence this winner's story is about the process of moving from winning to getting the commission to create a portrait of Professor Hannah Fry for the Royal Society started, worked on, done and then unveiled - as a MONOPRINT.
The portrait was commissioned by the Royal Society as part of a year-long celebration of the 80th anniversary of the first women elected to its Fellowship, Kathleen Lonsdale FRS and Marjory Stephenson FRS.
The Sitter and the Unveiling
We'll start at the very beginning and then the end - with the Sitter and the Unveiling
Every year the last episode in each series of the "Portrait Artist of the Year" programmes, made by Storyvault Films and broadcast on Sky Arts, is about the £10,000 Commission awarded to the winning artist.
The Commission
- create a portrait of a specific individual - who is typically well known and has contributed in a significant way to public life.
- for a particular organisation - who would like to have a portrait of that individual.
The Client
- formally founded in 28 November 1660 and formally known as The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge,
- It is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. It is also known as
the oldest scientific organisation in continuous existence in the world
The Sitter
- first ever Professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. Previously she was the Professor of the Mathematics of Cities at University College London (UCL)
- President of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications
- a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering
- has received various awards, including latterly the Royal Society's David Attenborough Award and Lecture 2024 in recognition of her significant work in public engagement with science and for her prolific role in popularising mathematics. The medal is bronze, is awarded annually and is accompanied by a gift of £2,500.
- plus she has 1.7 million followers on Instagram @frysquared
The Unveiling
First we all wait,
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Left: Royal Society people and programme presenter Right: Chloe Barnes and Prof. Hannah Fry with her two daughters |
Then we all take a jolly good look
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Keith Moore, Head of Library at the Royal Society comments on the
fact this is the first print portrait of a living female scientist at the Royal Society |
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Posing for photographs - Hannah Fry and her daughters with the monoprint by Chloe Barnes |
