The always stimulating BP Portrait Award, now in its twenty-eighth year and eighteenth year of sponsorship by BP, returns to Edinburgh this winter and presents some of the very best examples of contemporary portrait painting.
This year’s jury made a selection of sixty from a record entry of 1,870 original works, submitted from around the world, and awarded the First Prize of £25,000 to Paul Emsley’s dramatic close-up of fellow artist, Michael Simpson.
All the portraits are based on studies from life and include a range of sitters such as partners, friends, children, parents and self-portraits. Together they offer a fascinating contrast to the commissioned and institutional images on display elsewhere at the Portrait Gallery.
Every artistic approach is evident, from the highly expressionistic to the immaculately photo-realist in style but, whether considered individually or in their totality, the exhibited works demonstrate the tremendous vitality and effectiveness of the painted portrait in an age when digital and photographic images are assumed to dominate creativity and representation.
The exhibition also includes a thought-provoking series of portraits by Toby Wiggins. Winner of the annual BP Travel Award in 2006, Wiggins used his prize money to travel through parts of southwest Britain, Hardy’s ‘Wessex’, recording individuals within an agricultural community undergoing transformational change.
Exhibition organised by the National Portrait Gallery, London.
