BP Portrait Prize
Encyclopedia
Portrait
thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...
ure competition held at the National Portrait Gallery in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It is the successor to the John Player Portrait Award.
British Petroleum
BP
BP p.l.c. is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors"...
took over sponsorship of the competition in 1989 from John Player & Sons
John Player & Sons
John Player & Sons, known simply as Player's, was a tobacco and cigarette manufacturer based in Nottingham, England. It is today a part of the Imperial Tobacco Group.-History:...
, a tobacco company, and has sponsored it since. The presence of both sponsors has triggered protests, with the group Art Not Oil (part of the international Rising Tide
Rising Tide North America
Rising Tide North America is a grassroots network of groups and individuals in North America who take action against the root causes of climate change and work towards a just transition to a non-carbon society. Rising Tide North America is part of an international network dedicated to building a...
network) being responsible for most of those against BP.
The exhibition opens in June each year and runs until September. First prize is typically £25,000. In the early years of the century, the prize went up from £5,000, and its catchment area was gradually extended from residents of the UK and is now unrestricted. It is regarded as the best showcase of young figurative painting in Britain, and many winners have gone on to become highly collectible. In spite of its traditional and non-headline-grabbing qualities, it has been highly popular with the general public, though in recent years there has been some controversy over the choice of winners.
Past winners
- 2010 – Daphne ToddDaphne ToddDaphne Todd OBE is an English artist who was the first female President of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters from 1994–2000, and who won the BP Portrait Award 2010 with a painting of her 100-year-old mother's corpse....
- 2009 – Peter Monkman
- 2008 – Craig Wylie and Praneet Arora
- 2007 – Paul EmsleyPaul EmsleyPaul Emsley is a South African painter now resident in Bradford-upon-Avon, Wiltshire, England. He is a former lecturer at the Stellenbosch University and the 2007 winner of the BP Portrait Award for portrait painting.-Awards:-External links:**...
- 2006 – Andrew Tift
- 2005 – Dean Marsh (artist)
- 2004 – Stephen Shankland
- 2003 – Charlotte HarrisCharlotte Harris (artist)Charlotte Harris is a portrait artist who was born in Ashford, Kent in 1981 and currently works from her studio in Folkestone.- Biography :Harris studied at Leeds Metropolitan University, during which time she worked as a studio assistant for the artist Tom Wood, whose work is featured in the...
- 2002 – Catherine Goodman
- 2001 – Stuart Pearson WrightStuart Pearson WrightStuart Pearson Wright is an award winning English artist who works mainly in paint. He was educated at Slade School of Fine Art, University College of London , where he graduated with honours, receiving a B.A. in Fine Art...
- 2000 – Victoria Russell (artist)Victoria Russell (artist)Victoria Kate Russell is the winner of the National Portrait Gallery's 2000 BP Portrait Award for portrait painting.Her commissioned portraits have included the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, Dame Shirley Williams, and the Queen of Denmark, HM Margrethe II.-External links:**...
- 1999 – Clive SmithClive SmithClive Smith may refer to:*Clive Smith , Kingston Polytechnic lecturer, trained as a cosmonaut in the USSR under Project Juno, British space programme in the early 1990s...
- 1998 – Thomas WatsonThomas Watson-Bishops:*Thomas Watson *Thomas Watson , English clergyman-Writers:*Thomas Watson , English poet and translator*Thomas Watson -Bishops:*Thomas Watson (bishop of Lincoln) (1515–1584)*Thomas Watson (bishop of St David's) (1637–1717), English clergyman-Writers:*Thomas Watson (poet) (c. 1557–1592),...
- 1997 – James Lloyd (portrait artist)James Lloyd (portrait artist)James Lloyd is the 1997 winner of the National Portrait Gallery's BP Portrait Award for portrait painting.He also held the held the Paul Smith scholarship at the Slade School of Art -External links:**...
- 1996 – James Hague
- 1995 – Ishbel Myerscough
- 1994 – Peter EdwardsPeter Edwards (artist)Peter Douglas Edwards, born 20 November 1955, British painter. Winner of the 1994 BP Portrait Award.- Early life and career :Peter Edwards was born in Chirk, North Wales, the son of Harry William Edwards, who came from a brewing family , and Annie May Williams, daughter of Allan Williams killed in...
- 1993 – Philip HarrisPhilip Harris (artist)Philip Harris won 1st prize in the National Portrait Gallery's 1993 BP Portrait Award for portrait painting with the painting 'Two Figures Lying in a Shallow Stream' generally considered to have been the most powerful and influential painting in the history of the competition...
- 1992 – Lucy Willis
- 1991 – Justin Mortimer
- 1990 – Annabel Cullen
- 1989 – Tai-Shan SchierenbergTai-Shan SchierenbergTai-Shan Schierenberg is a portrait painter, based in London. He was the winner of the 1989 BP Portrait Award.-Life and career:Tai-Shan Schierenberg was born in England in 1962, the eldest of three sons to a very young Chinese mother and a nascent painter-cum-poet father of Dutch-German...
- 1988 – Allan Ramsay
- 1987 – Alison Watt
Selected works
It has become a BP Portrait Awards convention that a single work is selected to be used prominently on that year's posters and other publicity materials, and for the cover of the year's exhibition catalogue. Recent "showcase" portraits include:- 2011 – "Geneva", by Ilaria Rosselli del Turco
- 2010 – "Don't Be Too Serious", by Elizabeth McDonaldElizabeth McDonaldElizabeth McDonald is an American painter.McDonald was raised in Texas and lives in Glasgow, Scotland. She received a B.F.A., at the University of North Texas and an M.F.A. at the Glasgow School of Art. McDonald won the Young Artist Award at the 2010 BP Portrait Awards in the National Portrait...
- 2009 – "Georgie", by Mary Jane Ansell
- 2009 (In Scotland) – "On Assi Ghat", by Edward Sutcliffe
- 2008 – "Konjit" by Maryam Foroozanfar
- 2007 – "Winter Portrait", by Ingolv HellandIngolv HellandIngolv Helland is a Norwegian portraitist who has developed an international reputation.In the 2007 exhibition for the prestigious BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery , Helland's self-portrait was one of only 60 artists selected to participate – out of 1870 entries – and his work...
- 2006 – "Matthew", by Ben JamieBen JamieBen Jamie is a British painter based in London. He has interests in portraiture and photorealism.Born in 1978, he was educated at the University of Gloucestershire and the Ecole Cantonale D'Art Du Valais in Sierre, Switzerland....
- 2005 – "Portrait of Chantal Menard", by Sean Cheetham
BP Visitor Choice
Each year, the BP Visitor Choice competition offers visitors to the highly popular BP Portrait Award exhibition the opportunity to vote for their favourite portrait in the exhibition.- 2011 – Jan Mikulka
- 2010 – cz: Michal Ožibko
- 2007 – cz: Hynek Martinec
External links
- "Painting of artist's mother aged 100 wins BP Portrait Award" (telegraph.co.uk 23 June 2010)
- "BP Portrait Award 2010: Full frontal at the National Portrait Gallery" (guardian.co.uk, 23 June 2010)
- "Three finalists compete for BP Portrait award prize after record entry" (guardian.co.uk 21 April 2009)
- Search guardian.co.uk, 'National Portrait Award' (more than fifty articles, as of August 2010)
- thesundaytimes.co.uk, 'National Portrait Award' (more than eighty articles, as of August 2010)