The BP Portrait Award is an annual

portrait A portrait is a portrait painting, painting, portrait photography, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, Personality type ...

ure competition held at the National Portrait Gallery in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is the successor to the John Player Portrait Award. It is the most important portrait prize in the world, and is reputedly one of the most prestigious competitions in

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

History

British Petroleum took over sponsorship of the competition in 1989 from

John Player & Sons John Player & Sons, most often known simply as Player's, was a tobacco and cigarette manufacturer based in Nottingham, England. In 1901, the company merged with other companies to form The Imperial Tobacco Company to face competition from US ma ...

, a tobacco company which had sponsored it from its inception in 1980, 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 network) being responsible for most of those against BP. In 2016, The Museums Association conducted a formal investigation into BP's sponsorship when Art Not Oil alleged that the company influenced curatorial decisions and used its association with the National Gallery to further its political interests both domestic and international. The

exhibition An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibition ...

opens in June each year and runs until September. First prize is typically £30,000. 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. Until 2006, the competition has been open to under-40s only. Since 2007, it is open to anyone over the age of 18 and a separate BP Young Artist Award is granted to the best portrait artist between 18 and 30. In 1993, Tom Hallifax was used to advertise the awards. In 2012 the competition received 2,187 entries from 74 countries (including 1,500 from the UK) of which 55 paintings were selected to be exhibited.

Winners

John Player Portrait Award

*1980 *1981 *1982 – Humphrey Ocean *1983 – Michael R. Taylor *1984 – Rosemary Beaton *1985 – Jeff Stultiens *1986 – Ivy Smith *1987 – Alison Watt *1988 – Allan Ramsay *1989 – Paula MacArthur &

Tai-Shan Schierenberg Tai-Shan Schierenberg (born 1962) is a British portrait painter, based in London. He was the joint winner of the 1989 BP Portrait Award and is Head of Painting at the Art Academy in London. Early life and career Tai-Shan Schierenberg was born ...

– joint first prize winners

BP Portrait Award

*1990 – Annabel Cullen *1991 –

Justin Mortimer Justin Mortimer (born 1970) is an English painter, recognized for his paintings of well known high society including Harold Pinter, Sir Steve Redgrave and Queen Elizabeth II. He won the National Gallery's BP Portrait Award in 1991. Early life ...

*1992 – Lucy Willis *1993 – Philip Harris *1994 – Peter Edwards *1995 – Ishbel Myerscough *1996 – James Hague *1997 – James Lloyd *1998 – Thomas Watson *1999 – Clive Smith *2000 – Victoria Russell *2001 – Stuart Pearson Wright *2002 –

Catherine Goodman Catherine Anne Goodman LVO (born 1961) is an English artist, and co-founder with King Charles III of the Royal Drawing School. Biography Goodman was born in London in 1961. She studied at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, London from 1979 to ...

*2003 –

Charlotte Harris Charlotte Harris (born 1981 in Ashford, Kent) is a portrait artist who 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 artis ...

*2004 – Stephen Shankland *2005 – Dean Marsh *2006 – Andrew Tift *2007 – Paul Emsley *2008 – Craig Wylie and Praneet Arora *2009 – Peter Monkman *2010 –

Daphne Todd Daphne Todd OBE (born 27 March 1947) 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. ...

*2011 – Wim Heldens *2012 – Aleah Chapin *2013 – Susanne du Toit *2014 – Thomas Ganter *2015 – Matan Ben-Cnaan *2016 – Clara Drummond *2017 – Benjamin Sullivan *2018 – Miriam Escofet *2019 – Charlie Schaffer *2020– Jiab Prachakul

SELF Portrait Prize

* 2013 Jan MikulkaThe Royal Society of Portrait Painters: Jan Mikulka: SELF, 2013
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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: *2004 – "Caroline" by James E Crowther *2005 – "Portrait of Chantal Menard" by Sean Cheetham *2006 – "Matthew" by Ben Jamie *2007 – "Winter Portrait" by Ingolv Helland *2008 – "Konjit" by Maryam Foroozanfar *2009 – "Georgie" by Mary Jane Ansell / "On Assi Ghat" by Edward Sutcliffe (used by National Gallery Scotland) *2010 – "Blue Coco" by Shaun Downey *2011 – "Geneva" by Ilaria Rosselli del Turco *2012 – "Rosie and Pumpkin" by Vanessa Lubach / "Richie Culver" by Alan Coulson *2013 – "Inner Dialogue" by Jamie Routley *2014 – "Engels" by Patrik Graham / "Gina and Cristiano" by Isabella Watling (used by National Gallery Scotland) *2015 – "Portrait of Esta Sexton, aged 12" by Paul P Smith *2016 – "Francesca" by Daniele Vezzani / "Tad (Son Of The Artist)" by John Borowicz (used by National Gallery Scotland) *2017 – "Lemn Sissay" by Fiona Graham-Mackay *2018 – "Laura" by Shawn McGovern *2019 – "Manresa" by Frances Borden

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. *2006 – Vanessa Garwood *2007 – Hynek Martinec *2008 – José Luis Corella *2009 – José Luis Corella *2010 – Michal Ožibko *2011 – Jan Mikulka *2012 – Colin Davidson *2013 – Lionel Smit *2014 – Yunsung Jang *2015 – José Luis Corella *2016 – Jean-Paul Tibbles *2017 – Rupert Alexander

BP Travel Award

The BP Travel Award is an annual award allowing artists to experience working in a different environment on a project related to portraiture. The successful applicants work is exhibited at the Portrait Gallery the following year. Country of each artists project shown in brackets below. *1998 – Stuart Pearson Wright (UK) *2000 – Si Sapsford (Iceland) *2001 – Alan Parker (UK) *2002 – Daisy Richardson & Jessica Wolfson (Russia/China) *2003 – Ulyana Gumeniuk (Russia) *2004 –

Darvish Fakhr Darvish Fakhr (born 1969) is an Iranian American artist born in Newfoundland. He is an artist in the field of Iranian portrait paintings. Biography Born in 1969, Fakhr grew up in the U.S. before moving to Britain where his practice has been ...

(Iran) *2005 – Joel Ely (Spain) *2006 – Toby Wiggins (UK) *2007 – Gareth Reid (Finland) *2008 – Emmanouil Bitsakis (China) *2009 – Isobel Peachey (Belgium/Switzerland) *2010 – Paul Beel (Greece) *2011 – Jo Fraser (Peru) *2012 –

Carl Randall Carl Randall (born 1975) is a British figurative painter, whose work is based on images of modern Japan and London. Education Randall is a graduate of The Slade School of Fine Art London (BA Fine Art), the Royal Drawing School London (The Dra ...

(Japan) *2013 – Sophie Ploeg (Belgium/UK) *2014 – Edward Sutcliffe (US) *2015 – Magali Cazo (West Africa) *2016 – Laura Guoke (Greece)

References

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)
Art Not Oil
{{BP British art awards Culture in London National Portrait Gallery, London Awards established in 1980 1980 establishments in the United Kingdom