I've been reviewing the Portrait Award at the NPG since 2008 (see end)
- I generally walk out of the Awards Night Viewing knowing which portraits have made a big impression on me - and they are not necessarily the winners. (see Moira Cameron wins the £35K HSF Kramer Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery)
- It's then interesting to go back the next morning for the Press View morning to see whether I still think the same
- I then get to think about the portraits again when I'm writing Portrait Award 2025 - Artists with their paintings - but of course that, in part, depends on whether the artist was there and could be spotted (some artists have not yet worked out yet that the buttons they are given to wear can generate them publicity!)
- I visited again earlier this month to see whether I still felt the same. This time to also make sure that I looked at every single portrait properly - because sometimes the impression you get depends on size and where they are hung - and my list changed!
I think it very likely that one of the ten portrait paintings you can see
below will be the winner of the Visitor's Choice Award.
I'm also still waiting to hear which artist, from last year's exhibition and
this one, has won the award of a commission by the NPG......
The Ten Portrait Paintings I liked the best
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| A strong "blokey" corner of the exhibition |
I've got two lists. The one I wrote down after the Press View and the one I
wrote when I visited the exhibition again at the beginning of this month. Nine
are the same - I changed just one (and I'm not going to say which!).
You will find bios for most of these artists in my last post about artists with their paintings.
So that says something for my taste I guess and/or the impact of the paintings
listed below.
I need to emphasise that my personal view is that, in general, you need to know the person to want to hang a portrait (as opposed to a figurative painting) in your own home. It's very rare to create a portrait of a person which you would hang as art as opposed to a painting. Which is not to say portraits are not good art - but does serve to explain why portrait commissions are the life blood of most portrait painters.
It's a challenge to make people really interested in a portrait......
Those entering this competition must ponder long and hard about what makes a difference....
Do not read anything in to the order of the portraits presented below. There is nothing significant about the way they are listed, however I have
decided to group them by size.
- Big
- Small
- Large Medium
- Small Medium
At this point I will comment that I think the National Portrait Gallery
does all of the artists a major disservice
by failing to state on the website or the label in the gallery what the
dimensions of the portrait are. It essentially means online viewers have no
idea whatsoever which are large and which are small.
It's one of the reasons I feel the need to do my post about artists with their
portraits.
That's because there is a HUMONGOUS DIFFERENCE in the size of different
selected portraits
- but you'd never ever know it if all you had to go on was the images on the
website!
It was also impossible to buy the catalogue (which, from recollection, had the dimensions)
when I went back - because they'd run out!
How can you run out of a catalogue which is on exhibition for another 11
WEEKS?!!
(PS Same thing had happened with the Jenny Saville Catalogue. I think
somebody in NPG catalogue ordering needs a performance review and/or
retraining!)
