Interview with Clara Drummond - Winner of BP Portrait Award 2016

I've uploaded my video of my interview with Clara Drummond, the 2016 Winner of the BP Portrait Award to YouTube

Clara Drummond with the portrait which won the First Prize
in the BP Portrait Award 2016
Girl in a Liberty Dress (260 x 370 mm, oil on board)

You can view my video interview with Clara below - or you can click the YouTube icon bottom right and view it on HD and a larger scale within my YouTube Video Channel.

WARNING! As often happens with my interviews with the winners of the BP Portrait Award, there's a lot of hubbub in the background. This year it was compounded by the painting being hung in the middle of the exhibition rather than towards the end of the gallery - so even more noise! However you should be able to hear my questions and her responses without too much difficulty unless you have a hearing impairment.  However I would recommend listening to the interview when you don't have any background noise in your own environment.

By the way it's a great interview and very informative!

To give you a flavour of the interview here are some of the highlights of what she talks about:

• why she decided not to go to art school
• what she learned as an assistant to portrait painter Jonathan Yeo
• the drawings and paintings of other artists which provide her with inspiration
• her emphasis on drawing
• why she paints her friends repeatedly
• why you need to keep growing as a painter and try new techniques
• why experimentation is important when working 
• what was the one thing she did which changed her approach to her format and painting
• how her approach has changed recently - and how she describes it
• what it was like meeting Jenny Saville - and why she has been an inspiration

Below you have

• more about how you can see this year's exhibition in London and on tour
• more about Clara Drummond and other comments on her win
• FOR THE SERIOUS FANS: more about BP Portrait Award Winners from previous years

More about the BP Portrait Award 2016

You can see the exhibition at:

• National Portrait Gallery until 4th September after which it tours to:
• Usher Gallery, Lincoln (12 September – 13 November 2016) and 
• Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh (26 November 2016 - 26 March 2017.)

Plus you can see it online my video of the exhibition

These are my previous posts relating to the 2016 competition

• Call for Entries: £30,000 BP Portrait Award 2016 - How to enter and how to get selected
• My annual guide to how to enter the BP Portrait Award 2016! Plus how to improve your chances of being selected & 12 great reasons to enter
• Comparison of the RSPP Open and BP Portrait Award Competition
• BP Portrait Award 2016: Selected Artists
• My "Best of the Rest" from BP Portrait Award Entries The top ten 'best of the rest' - selected from entries submitted to me that didn't make it into the 2016 BP Portrait Award Exhibition.
• £30,000 BP Portrait Award 2016 - The Shortlist
• Clara Drummond wins £30000 BP Portrait Award 2016 - Making a Mark
• BP Portrait Award 2016 - Artists with their paintings - Photos and bios of artists with their portraits in the BP Portrait Award Exhibition 2016.

This is how to sign up for information about the 2017 Award

More about Clara Drummond

This is Clara's website http://www.claradrummond.co.uk
This is Clara on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/clara.drummond.79

Contact Clara to find out where she is teaching.

• She's a member of the Royal Drawing School Central Faculty. 
• This week she's teaching a Summer School Course for the Royal Drawing School - Summer School: Inspired By Flora: From Botanical Gardens To Persian Carpets, Matisse And O'Keeffe

Read more about Clara in the press about her win

• The Guardian - The painter enchanting the art world with her thoroughly modern muse
• The Guardian - Clara Drummond's Girl in a Liberty Dress wins BP portrait award
• The Telegraph - Third time lucky for BP Portrait Prize winner

More about the Winners and the Shortlists

What follows is for those seriously interested in this competition!

£30,000 BP Portrait Award 2016 - The Shortlist

Three very impressive and very different paintings have been shortlisted for the £30,000 BP Portrait Award 2016. Each of them is guaranteed a prize. 

They are:

• Girl in a Liberty Dress by Clara Drummond - a portrait of her friend and a fellow artist
• Hugo by Benjamin Sullivan - a portrait of the poet Hugo Williams; 
• Silence by Chinese artist Bo Wang - a portrait of his dying Grandmother.

Both Clara and Benjamin have been selected a number of times previously. In fact Benjamin has been labelled by me as a future BP Portrait Award winner a number of times! However Bo Wang is selected for the first time.

They're brilliant portraits - I love them all! I've also got the big high res images of them and after close inspection I'd find it very difficult to choose between them.  However if you read on, you will realise that past experience suggests one is a clear front -runner......

The portraits and artists are highlighted below

In terms of the competition as a whole:

• The Entry: The shortlist of three was selected from 2,557 portraits by artists from 80 countries (the entry is limited to one portrait per artist). 
• Selected Artists: More about who got selected for the exhibition tomorrow when I will link websites to the names of the artists whose portraits have been selected to be in the exhibition
• The Best of the Rest: the closing date for my invitation to the "best of the rest" - of those not selected - is Friday.

Shortlisted artists

The BP Portrait Award is said to be the world’s most prestigious portrait painting competition - with total prize money of £60,000. 

Just being selected, never mind shortlisted or winning a prize is a great honour.
The prizes are as follows:

• First Prize: £30,000 plus a commission worth £5,000 to paint a portrait for the National Portrait Gallery’s Collection, to be agreed between the Gallery and the artist. 
• Second Prize: £10,000 
• Third Prize: £8,000. 
• The BP Young Artist Award of £7,000 will be awarded to the work of an entrant aged between 18 and 30. 

Who has won which prize will be announced at a special Evening Reception at the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery on the evening of Tuesday 21 June 2016 - and prizes will be presented by athlete Jessica Ennis-Hill.

Girl in a Liberty Dress by Clara Drummond

Clara Drummond is shortlisted for the first time.

Girl in a Liberty Dress

oil on board, 260 x 370 mm (10.2 x 14.5 inches)

copyright Clara Drummond

There's lots to like about this portrait.

The oil in this portrait is applied very thinly and sensitively almost in the style of a watercolour painting. - a technique which we sadly see far too little of. It reminds me very much of the way in which Jennifer McRae (a former BP prizewinner) works - it's all about the composition, tone and the draughtsmanship. There are also echoes in the pose of Jane Morris who inspired any number of portraits.

• Age: 38 years old (b. 27 September 1977)
• Nationality: British
• Occupation: artist
• Current home: Cambridgeshire (born in Edinburgh, Scotland)
• Art education: Prince’s Drawing School. (She studied studied modern languages at Cambridge University)
• Previous appearances in this award: previously selected five times for the BP Portrait Award Exhibition (2006, 2009, 2013 and 2014)
• Previous notable portraits for this award: Iris Palmer for BP Portrait Award 2009, and her friend, actor Ben Whishaw (2005 exhibition).
• Website: http://www.claradrummond.co.uk/
• Title / Media:  Girl in a Liberty Dress (260 x 370 mm, oil on board)
• Subject: Friend/artist Kirsty Buchanan (also painted for her exhibited works in the BP Portrait Award in 2013 and 2014)

The model Kirsty is a friend and fellow artist - and the subject of two previous works which have been selected for the BP Portrait Exhibition. On this occasion, both artists were working with the William Morris Society archive on an exhibition at the time and were looking at the hand drawn patterns for fabrics, wallpapers and tapestries by Jane Morris and May Morris, William Morris's wife and daughter. Hence the Liberty Print dress seemed appropriate for the context of the time.

Drummond says of Kirsty that

she is inspiring because she is always immersed in the ideas around whatever she is making at the time, history, nature, mythology and art all feed into her work, so when I am drawing or painting her it feels more like a collaboration than a portrait sitting.'

Hugo by Benjamin Sullivan

Benjamin Sullivan is shortlisted for the first time.

Note this is the ONLY one of the three paintings which demonstrates torso, head and hands - and I refer people back to last year's analysis of the paintings selected and my observation

all the portraits which have WON the BP Portrait Award since 2010 have all included hands

Clara Drummond wins £30,000 BP Portrait Award 2016

The winners of the prizes at the BP Portrait Awards Ceremony last night are as follows....

BP Portrait Award 2016 - £30,000 First Prize

Clara Drummond won the first prize in the BP Portrait award - a cash award of £30,000, plus a commission worth £5,000, to be agreed between the National Portrait Gallery and the artist.

(Note: Links embedded in the name of the artist goes to their website)

Clara Drummond - BP Portrait Award First Prize
with her painting Girl in a Liberty Dress
(260 x 370 mm, oil on board)

Her painting Girl in a Liberty Dress is a portrait of her friend and a fellow artist Kirsty Buchanan who featured in the portraits by Drummond which were selected for the 2013 and 2014 exhibitions. The reference to the paisley dress is that Kirsty sat for Clara for this portrait while wearing a vintage Liberty dress inspired by the fact that both artists were working on an exhibition at the time with the William Morris Society Archive (which was held in May).

Clara Drummond and her model and fellow artist Kirsty Buchanan

She was presented with the prize by Jessica Ennis-Hill, the current Olympic and world heptathlon champion and a BP Ambassador for Sport. She beat allcomers for the shortest preamble to the Awards Ceremony while commenting that she normally thinks of the first, second and third prize as the Gold, Silver and Bronze Medals! She was accompanied by Nicholas Cullinan, Director of the National Portrait Gallery and Bob Dudley, Group Chief Executive for BP.

Jessica Ennis-Hill, Clara Drummond, Nicholas Cullinan and Bob Dudley, the group chief executive of BP

In total 38-year-old Cambridgeshire-based artist Drummond has been selected for the exhibition five times (2006, 2009, 2013, 2014, 2016) but this is the first time she has been shortlisted for the BP Portrait Award.

Clara read Modern Languages at Cambridge. She is also a graduate of The Drawing MA programme at the Prince’s Drawing School (now known as The Royal Drawing School). The intensive year of drawing developed both her draftsmanship and her approach to painting. In 2011 she joined the teaching faculty at the The Royal Drawing School and also teaches at The Saatchi Gallery and at the London Zoo.  Prior to this she was an assistant to portrait painter Jonathan Yeo and then later for a short period in Maria Theresa Meloni’s studio in New York. She has also been awarded the Bulldog Award by the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the Young Artist of the Year Prize by the Society of Woman Artists.

I'm guessing that the choice of the painting for first prize may surprise some people. I can only recommend that they go take a look for themselves. Portraiture is not only about hyperrealist paintings which take hundreds of hours.

Judges’ comments – Girl in a Liberty Dress

‘This year’s overall winner was noted by all of the judges for its subtle, enigmatic nature, and for the indelible impression the artist’s skill makes on the viewer.’

I know from having spoken to her, that renowned artist and Judge Jenny Saville was very impressed with the winning painting - she thought it stood out from the others.

Clara Drummond with BP Portrait Judge and artist Jenny Saville

TIP for future BP entries:

• Your painting does not have to be big - this year's exhibition has a lot of smaller paintings 
• A painting which captures the inner self as well as an outer likeness can do very well.

This is the prizewinners wall.

The BP Portrait Award Prizewinners
from left to right - First Prize, Second Prize and Third Prize

I've already got a video of the exhibition which will demonstrate the change in the size and nature of the paintings in this BP Portrait Award exhibition.

Second Prize: £10,000

What do paintings by BP Portrait Award winners look like?

This is about BP Portrait Award Winners and 

• the portraits they paint than won the BP Portrait Award; and 
• the commissions they undertake for the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Below you can find a chronological list of names of all the past winners of the BP Portrait Award - together with

• links to their website in their name (next to the year they won)
• my blog posts about the win and interview with them (if there was one)
• links to where you can see:
• the portraits that have won the BP Portrait Award First Prize
• the commissions for the National Portrait Gallery produced by the artists who won first prize

The BP Portrait award winners wall in 2017
- much smaller portraits compared to most previous years

What I didn't know before I produced this listing is that:

• not all winners produce a commission. Typically the international artists have not painted a portrait of a 'significant Briton' commissioned by the NPG 
• there is sometimes a very long gap between the BP Portrait Award win and the production of the commission. I can only imagine that this is because some effort is made to match sitter and painter and that prior commitments and available dates don't always work out as the NPG might wish.

ALERT This post a preamble to my next blog post which will be about the Call for Entries for the 2018 BP Portrait Award.

BP Portrait Award Winners

Interview with Benjamin Sullivan (BP Portrait Award 2016 3rd Prize)

The major benefit of NOT winning the BP Portrait Award - but being a regular exhibitor - is that the exhibition enables a lot of people to see your work. That, in turn, means more opportunities for selling work and getting commissions for future portraits from people who see and like your work.

Ben, Ginnie and Edie Sullivan and the BP Portrait Award Third Prize Painting of Hugo

That was the major conclusion drawn from my VIDEO interview with Benjamin Sullivan who won 3rd Prize in the 2016 BP Portrait Award. He's a "BP regular" who has had his portrait selected on a number of occasions since 2002. In fact I think he may well lay claim to being the portrait painter who has been selected the most times for this exhibition.

Let's also not forget that in 2015 the BP Portrait Award Exhibition was seen by 329,556 visitors.

Where else can you get this number of people viewing your portrait painting?

Plus if you keep coming back - and become a BP regular - some artists become better known than the people who won!

Video Interview with Ben Sullivan

My Video Interview with the 2016 Third Prizewinner Ben Sullivan covers:

• the benefits - in terms of sales and commissions - for a professional portrait painter of getting a portrait into the BP Portrait Award Exhibition 
• being a professional portrait artist
• painting people in their own home
• his approach to painting and how he starts
• the importance of drawing from observation
• working from observation vs working from photos
• the value of painting family and friends on a regular basis

This year I wrote a post Comparison of the RSPP Open and BP Portrait Award Competition in which I compared the similarities and differences between the open annual exhibition of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the BP Portrait Award which is an art competition.

I think a number of portrait painters - around the world - might like to reflect on Ben's comments in the video and my observations in the abovementioned blog post.

More about Benjamin Sullivan RP NEAC

You can read a lot more about Ben in my shortlist blog post - £30,000 BP Portrait Award 2016 - The Shortlist. Key facts are:

• previously selected 12 times for the BP Portrait Award Exhibition (2002 and 2006-2015)
• won the Lynn Painter Stainers Prize in 2007
• the youngest ever painter to be elected (at the time) to both 
• the New English Art Club (2001) and
• the Royal Society of Portrait Painters (2003)
• BA (Hons) in Drawing and Painting from Edinburgh College of Art (graduated 2000)
• born in Grimsby in 1977 and lives and works in Suffolk - but will travel for commissions.
• website: http://www.benjaminsullivan.co.uk
• Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/benjaminsullivanart/

Check out the portrait with the model.
This is Hugo Williams (the subject of the portrait) and his wife

BP Portrait Award Winners and Shortlists

You can read more about the past winners and shortlists in my post Interview with Clara Drummond - Winner of BP Portrait Award 2016.

Below is a list of the videos of past prizewinners

Videos of BP Portrait Award prizewinners

I began to interview prizewinners in 2012 - starting with Aleah Chapin - whose video has now been seen by around 80,000 people

I try to interview as many prizewinners as possible the following morning after the Awards Ceremony. It's often very loud and noisy in the exhibition and I try to leave the interviews towards the end of the morning when the hubbub has died down.  Sometimes there is a problem with language and sometimes the artist has disappeared before I can interview them!

First Prize

• 2015: Matan Ben Cnaan
• 2014: Thomas Ganter
• 2012: Aleah Chapin

Second Prize

• 2015: Michael Gaskell
• 2014: Richard Twose

Third Prize

• 2016: Ben Sullivan 
• 2014: David Jon Kassan

More about the BP Portrait Award 2016

You can see the exhibition at:

The Drawing Year - end of year exhibition

...otherwise known as the The Drawing Year 2015—16 Postgraduate Programme end of year exhibition is now on
at: the Royal Drawing School Shoreditch
until: Tuesday 17 January 2017 (Monday to Friday 9am—9pm)

It opened on Friday and includes over 300 works by the MA level postgraduate students.

It's always worth taking note of what The Drawing Year students are up to as many of them go on to feature prominently in the "selected artists" lists I post on this blog in relation to prestigious national art competitions from time to time - and some of them win the big prizes!

The Best of The Drawing Year
Drawings by Matthew Booker, Emma Inge and Eleanor Watson

It's also a good indication of the nature of contemporary drawing - the nature of which might surprise those who favour the photorealistic version of drawing.

The Drawing Year

The Drawing Year is a one year postgraduate level course run by The Royal Drawing School founded by HRH Prince of Wales (and previously known as the Princes Drawing School).

The place to learn to draw. Drawing is a primary language. It is a crucial route to innovation across the creative disciplines and beyond, from fashion, fine art and animation to filmmaking, product design and engineering.

Important features of the Drawing Year are:

• post-graduate MA level 
• full-time
• bursary/scholarship approach i.e. no fees
• free studio space
• one year - three terms of 10 weeks each
• Students are expected to attend:
• a minimum of two taught full days a week at classes
• Wednesday evening forum, lecture series and 
• personal studio practice days.

The Drawing Year is a full scholarship MA-level course offering up to thirty students the opportunity to focus on drawing from observation for one academic year. There are no tuition fees for The Drawing Year – all students are awarded a full scholarship and receive a free studio space.

Find out below how to learn more about the course and how to apply for a place.

The Drawing Year postgraduates 

Those taking part in this exhibition are as follows.

I was rather surprised at the extent to which students didn't have websites and/or have done little to make themselves easily found on Google.

• Euphrosyne Andrews, 
• Daniel Blumberg, 
• Matthew Booker, 
• India Boxall, 
• Becky Brewis Becky graduated from Oxford University of Oxford in 2010 with a degree in English (2.1) and then spent a delayed postgraduate year at the Royal Drawing School doing The Drawing Year (MA-level bursary) September 2015-December 2016 (Twitter)
• Grace Exley Prior to the Royal Drawing School, she studied at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford. This is a podcast about her drawings.
• Oscar Farmer
• Aisha Farr - studied English and Ancient Greek at the University of St Andrews and UCL prior to The Drawing Year.
• Holly Froy
• Shanti-Om Gorton - graduated from Brighton University with a BA Fine Art Painting
• Thomas Harrison - While a student on the Drawing Year, Tom Harrison had a drawing of a view from a flat selected for the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2015. He then went on to win the £8,000 First Prize.  This is a blog post about that achievement - Below are two more views of the view of scaffolding from a flat.

82 works selected for Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize

The names of the Artists selected for the exhibition associated with the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize - and consideration for the substantial cash prizes which are on offer - can be found below. Those artists with a number after their name have more than work in the exhibition. There are some very familiar names in the list and others who are rather less well known.

All are contenders for the rather nice prizes which are

• The Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize - £15,000 plus an engraved Gold Medal
• 5 Runner-Up Prizes each at £1,000
• Young Artist Award - £2,500 - to be awarded to an artist who is 25 years of age or under on 20 September 2009

One of the key aspects of the exhibition this year is that there are rather more works this year than have previously been included. Which makes me wonder whether artists are painting smaller this year or whether the competition has become a lot more popular in its fifth year.

Jennifer Anderson
Victoria Arney (2)

Ingrid by Victor Arney
oil on canvas, 98 x 98 cm
copyright the artist / used with permission

Ben Ashton
Maryanne Aytoun-Ellis
Warren Baldwin
Jennifer Beresford
Michael G Bilton
Sasha Bowles
Ron Boyd
Paul Brason
Peter Brown
Janet Buckle
Patricia Buckley
Rebecca Cains
Guocheng Chen
Tessa Coleman
Jeffery Courtney
Paul Critchley
Gus Cummins
Saied Dai
Michael de Bono
Thomas Doran (2)
Clara Drummond

Melanie and the circus horse by Clara Drummond
oil on canvas, 74 x 56 cm

Leo du Feu (2)
Bella Easton
Graham Flack
Peter Fleming
David Forster
Dick French
Anna Gardiner
David Paul Gleeson
Brian Gorst
Noreen Grant
Judith Green
Marcelle Hanselaar
C E Hardaker
Emma Haworth
Eileen Hogan
Janet Kenyon
James Lloyd
Jennifer McRae
Peter Messer
Melanie Miller
Wladyslaw Mirecki
Julian Gorden Mitchell
Rebecca Molloy
Simon Monk
William Packer
Terence Pearce
David Pearce (2)
Georgia Peskett
David Piddock
Stephen Read
Ilaria Rosselli del Turco
Alan Salisbury
Marcus Sandeman
Eric Seeley
Daniel Shadbolt (2)
Maurice Sheppard (2)
Nessie Spruce
Charlotte Steel
Bonita Tandy (2)
Liz Thomson
Yanko Tihov
Simon Turvey
Lorna Vahey
Alan Welsford
Neville Weston
David V Wheeler
Toby Wiggins (3)
Charles Williams (2)
Lisa Wright

The exhibition is being held at the usual place - The Worshipful Company of Painter Stainers, The Painters’ Hall, Little Trinity Lane, London, EC1 between 13 November - 30 November 2009 (10am to 4pm Monday to Saturday) On Saturday 14 the exhibition will be open 12 - 4pm due to the Lord Mayors Show. Admission is free

During the exhibition a series of Master Classes have been organised on the art of still life and portrait drawing. All classes are free, but booking is essential. Further information will be available shortly.

Thanks to Parker Harris for permission to use a couple of images of works in the exhibition.

Links:

• Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize 2009 - deadline 21st September

Review: Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition 2011 (Part 1)

Tai-Shen Schierenberg, Hon RP has won the Ondaatje Award for the most distinguished portrait in the  2011 Annual Exhibition of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.

The girl by Tai-Shen Schierenberg
oil

This is a real mark of excellence as the exhibition is a very high standard this year and contains numerous excellent painting and drawings.  In my view this current exhibition is at least as good if not better than the exhibition for BP Portrait Award.  I'd argue it was an exhibition worth going to see if you just wanted to see really good representational painting and drawing.

While the majority of work is by members this is an open exhibition and it also features work by non members.

Today it was the Private View - which is always packed out.

The Private View

This post focuses on the portraits which won awards.  Tomorrow I'll be commenting on the rest of the exhibition.

Seven Portraits: Surviving the Holocaust at the Queen's Gallery

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day - and a new exhibition has opened at the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace.

Seven Portraits: Surviving the Holocaust

This special display has been 

• commissioned by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales - who is Patron of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust,
• pays tribute to the stories of seven remarkable Holocaust survivors, each of whom has in recent years been honoured for services to Holocaust awareness and education.
• is on view at the Queen's Gallery every Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday until Sunday, 13 Feb 2022.

The Prince of Wales, who is Patron of the National Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, commissioned seven leading artists to paint the portraits as a living memorial to the six million innocent men, women and children who lost their lives in the Holocaust and whose stories will never be told. The profoundly moving portraits, which will become part of the Royal Collection, stand as a powerful testament to the extraordinary resilience and courage of those who survived.

Duchess of Cornwall with Holocaust survivor Helen Aronson (centre) 

and her family, and artist Paul Benney (right) beside the portrait of Helen 

during an exhibition at The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London, of 

'Seven Portraits: Surviving the Holocaust'

Sitters and Artists

The sitters and artists are:

• Helen Aronson BEM painted by Paul Benney
• Lily Ebert BEM painted by Ishbel Myerscough

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ishbel Myerscough (@ishbelmyerscough)

• Manfred Goldberg painted by Clara Drummond - who I interviewed back in 2016 Interview with Clara Drummond - Winner of BP Portrait Award 2016
• Arek Hersh painted by Massimiliano Pironti - who won 3rd prize in the BP Portrait Prize 2019 and who I'm photographed with in this post and who I wrote about in BP Portrait Award 2018 - Artists with their paintings. It'll be lovely to see him again in the BBC documentary tonight (see below)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Massimiliano Pironti (@massimilianopironti)

• Anita Lasker-Wallfisch - a surviving member of the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz - painted by Peter Kuhfeld RP NEAC
• Rachel Levy painted by Stuart Pearson Wright 
• Zigi Shipper BEM painted by Jenny Saville RA

It was a great privilege to paint this portrait of Rachel Levy as part of the exhibition, Seven Portraits: Surviving the Holocaust,⁰runs from Thursday, January 27th until Sunday, February 13th 2022⁰at The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace. pic.twitter.com/yorL92NnX1

— StuartPearsonWright (@StuartPWright) January 27, 2022

You can see:

• three of the portraits on the exhibition web page
• a documentary programme Survivors: Portraits of the Holocaust
  about the commission at 9pm tonight on BBC2 . It traces the year long project. 

Throughout the programme, we hear the testimonies of the remarkable men and women who were children when they witnessed one of the greatest atrocities in human history, as well as meeting the artists as they grapple with their paintings. We see some of the sittings and witness the touching friendships that have emerged between artist and sitter over the course of nearly two years. 

The finished portraits, destined for the Royal Collection, will be unveiled at the Queen’s Gallery in Buckingham Palace. They represent pain and loss as well as dignity and hope, and serve as a lasting reminder of horrors which will one day be lost to living memory.

Winners of the National Portrait Gallery's Portrait Award + Commissions

This is a list of 

• ALL the artists who have ever won the Portrait Award organised by the National Portrait Gallery in London 
• PLUS a link to ALL the commissions offered as part of their First Prize.

The list of past winners has been removed from the BP Portrait Award website. It's to be hoped that the National Portrait Gallery will provide evidence of who won what and when on a new page on its website at some future date. 

The most successful Portrait Award Artist ever! (see below for why)

Ben Sullivan with Ginnie and 15 month old Edie (at her second BP Awards ceremony!)

Breech! - Winner of the BP Portrait Award 2017

Oil on canvas, 820 x 400mm

Portrait Commissions

The NPG website records one of the original objectives of the Portrait Award - that of developing a programme of commissions of notable people in the UK.

Bryan Organ's portrait of 'Prince Charles', inaugurates an active programme of commissions. Annual Portrait Award for painters under 40 introduced and twelve portraits commissioned from Portrait Award winner s 1980-9 with support from Imperial Tobacco NPG Commissioning Portraits: Chronology 

However, National Portrait Gallery ONLY records 24 artists as Portrait Award Winners - of the 40 artists who have won the Award(!) - who have their commissioned portraits (part of the prize) listed in the records of the NPG's commissions and the permanent collection.

The other artists who won the award are no longer listed. 

Interestingly NOT all winners are invited to produce a commission!  ONLY 60% of artists have been awarded a commission in addition to the cash prize.

• There has also not been a commission awarded - which has resulted in a completed painting - between 2014-2020 - which seems like a very long time to keep advertising a commission from the NPG as part of the first prize!
• Typically international artists have not painted a portrait of a 'significant Briton' commissioned by the NPG. This is perhaps more understandable - but it's a penalty of making the competition international 

over time, the number of UK artists being selected for this competition has halved. 40th BP Portrait Award (2019) Shortlist

• Bottom line - the Award latterly did NOT fulfil one of the objectives of the original award - see Sponsorship of the "BP Portrait Award" competition has ended.

Portrait Award Winners

'Making A Mark' provides comprehensive records (see BP Portrait Award category) of who won what and when going back to 2008.  

BELOW is a list 

• The name of the award winner - by Sponsor, Title of the Award and Year
• The names of artists in bold included embedded links to my reviews of the announcement of the prizewinner
• identifies the commissioned portrait and links to its page on the NPG website
• Plus includes videos I made of interviews with award winners in recent years.

BP Portrait Award 2013 - Selected Artists and Statistics

1,969 artists from 77 different countries entered the BP Portrait Award 2013.  Of these

• 1,223 entries came from the UK and 
• 746 entries came from other countries (13 in total)

55 portrait artists (2.8% of the entry) had their paintings selected and hung in the BP Portrait Prize Exhibition 2013 .  This post highlights those artists and their portraits.

Selected artists 

Below you can find the names of the Selected Artists.  They're listed alphabetically by country - with UK countries first and then alphabetically by other countries.  The title of the work, size and media used are also listed.

These artists will have their portrait paintings seen by some 250,000 people this summer.

There are links in the names to the artist's websites (where websites could be found easily).  Some also have links to the portrait on their website.  The country is the country of residence rather than the country of origin.

Aspiring artists should:

• check out the website portfolios of selected artists and 
• note the standard of the websites - and note how many artists now have one!  Some had both websites and blog.

You can also see each the portrait of each exhibiting artist on the website

ENGLAND (31)

• Paul Anthony Barker (b.1966) Alastair Campbell 'All In The Mind' 460 x 360 Oil Canvas 
• David Caldwell (b.1977) Conversations 1590 x 1840 Oil board 

Conversations by David Caldwell
'100 Portraits" is a series of intimate portraits of friends, family and interested others.
Each portrait measures 17x12cm and are oil on board
I spent some time seeing who I could recognise in this picture
having spotted James Lloyd in this painting
James is an ex tutor of mine
as well as a previous BP Portrait Award winner .

• Freddy Clark (b.1989)  Josh 415 x 340 oil board 
• Saied Dai (b.1958) In Memory 660 x 510 Oil Linen on Panel

The Last of the Tide: Portraits of D-Day Veterans

HRH Prince of Wales has commissioned twelve portraits of D-Day veterans which can be seen in an exhibition called The Last of the Tide at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace until 17 June 2015.

The idea behind the exhibition is to pay tribute to those extraordinary men who played a role in the Allied Invasion of Normandy in June 1944.  The title of the exhibition comes from a message to the troops.

On the eve of D-Day General Eisenhower sent a message to all troops in which he declared, 'The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!'.

Twelve leading portrait painters were selected for the commission - one for each portrait. They include:

• four past winners of the BP Portrait Award First Prize - Catherine Goodman, James Lloyd, Ishbel Myerscough and Stuart Pearson Wright
• one winner of the BP Travel Award - Carl Randall
• winner of the BP Portrait Award Public Choice Award (twice) - Paul Benney
• Ondaatje prizewinner 1995, 2012 - Antony Williams RP PS NEAC
• Professor in Fine Art in the Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon art schools Graduate School, University of the Arts London - Eileen Hogan

Other artists are: Clara Drummond, Peter Kuhfeld (painter of "The Last Tommy"), Jonathan Yeo and Martin Yeoman

The exhibition opened on 6th June - the 71st anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy. The D-Day Landings involved  some 7,700 ships and 12,000 aircraft  and began the slow process of liberatingGerman-occupied France. It was and still is the largest amphibious invasion in history.

Prior to this in 2010 HRH The Prince of Wales commissioned 15 portraits of surviving servicemen by alumni and faculty of The Royal Drawing School (previously known as The Prince’s Drawing School), to mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain.

Admission to the exhibition is free.

Below you can see the portraits and hear something of what the men were involved in.

My thanks to the Press Office of the Royal Collection for the images you see in this post. Obviously not everybody is going to be able to get to see the exhibition - however this important series needs highlighting - hence this post.

The portraits - the men and the artists

'I am delighted to introduce this exhibition of portraits of veterans of the D-Day landings and very much hope that all who see it will share my belief that this wonderful collection of paintings captures the spirit, resolve, warmth and humanity of these remarkable men. It seemed to me a tragedy that there were no portraits of D-Day veterans, hence this collection of remarkable old soldiers from the regiments of which my wife and I are Colonel or Colonel-in-Chief.'HRH The Prince of Wales 

The 12 veterans all served in regiments with which HRH The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall have a formal association.

They are all shown wearing their medals win during WW2.

Thomas ‘David’ Burke (b. 1924) - Sergeant with Royal Signals and later the Cheshire Yeomanry
Artist: © James Lloyd | Photograph: © Royal Collection Trust

Mr Burke landed with Canadian forces as a signals sergeant and served through France and Germany until the Nazi surrender. He subsequently worked with the Allied Joint Signals Unit at the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal, and became part of the Cheshire Yeomanry after the war.

Call for Entries: Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award 2025

You have one month left to get a portrait painted and enter the most prestigious portrait competition in the UK - the Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery

• now sponsored by Herbert Smith Freehills (and formerly known as the BP Portrait Award). 
• I now call it THE Portrait Award! 

The highly successful competition aims to encourage artists over the age of eighteen to focus upon, and develop, the theme of portraiture in their work.

First of all, I have to apologise to regular followers for not highlighting this competition earlier. The announcement of the call for entries arrived at a different time of year to when it was normall published - and I unfortunately missed it.

By way of recompense, this post is all about the call for entries and is interspersed with my photos of past winners on the night they won their award!

However that said, let's get on with what you need to know.

Ben Sullivan -Winner in 2017 
and the most successful ever artist in this competition

Summary of Key Information about the Call for Entries 

Why enter The Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery?

I wrote two posts last year which 

• provides you with the incentives to enter - see WHY enter The Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery (London)
• shows you who got selected in 2023 Selected Artists - HSF Portrait Award 2024 at the National Portrait Gallery

Since its inception, the competition has attracted over 40,000 entries from more than 100 countries and the exhibition has been seen by over 6 million people. It has a first prize of £35,000, making it one of the largest for any global arts competition.

DOWNLOAD the full competition rules (PDF).

• if you get selected - which is itself a very valuable addition to any portrait painter's CV:
• your portrait painting will hang in an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London from 10 July until 12 October 2025
• AND you could also win a valuable prize
• first prize is £35,000
• second prize is £12,000
• third prize is £10,000
• the Young Artist's Prize (for artists aged between 18 and 30) £9,000
• anybody over the age of 18 (as of 1 January 2024) living anywhere in the world can enter this competition - except for previous first prize winners and those employed by the NPG or the prize's sponsors!

Moira Cameron wins the £35K HSF Kramer Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery

Moira Cameron (right) - Winner of the HSF Kramer Portrait Award
by Victoria Siddall, the new President of the National Portrait Gallery.

Four awards with a value of £66,000 were announced last night at the Awards Ceremony for the HSF Kramer Portrait Award 2025 at the National Gallery. 

The prize winners were as follows:

• First Prize £35,000: Moira Cameron for A Life Lived (Oil on canvas 2200 x 200mm)
• Second Prize £12,000: Tim Benson PPROI for Cliff, Outreach Worker (Oil on canvas, 1520 x 1220mm)
• Third Prize £10,000: Martyn Harris for Memories (Oil on board 400mm x 400mm)
• Young Artist Award £9,000: Michelle Liu for Kofi (Oil on canvas, 500 x 400mm)

Tim Benson receiving his award from Victoria Siddall

Below are the profiles of the artists and the portraits which won the prizes Words about the painting and what the Judges thought are from the press release - hence quotes.

First Prize Winner (£35,000) Moira Cameron