500 PORTRAITS : 25 YEARS OF THE BP PORTRAIT AWARD

Sir Michael Parkinson by Jonathon Yeo.

Featured image – Harold Pinter by Justin Mortimer.

It’s the Archibald Prize season at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and people are going in great numbers to check out this year’s exhibition which runs until the 9th September 2018.

Great Britain ,also, has its own annual portrait competition called the BP (British Petroleum) Portrait Award. The portraits are exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery in London. The London newspaper The Daily Mail calls it ‘the portraiture Oscars’ and artists from around the world are invited to enter. First Prize is $30,000.

Each year more than 2,000 artists, from over 70 countries, submit entries with over 250,000 people coming through the Gallery’s doors to see the work of the finalists.

I am sharing this with you because I have come across a superb publication which the National Portrait Gallery of London has published honouring this annual exhibition. It is called 500 PORTRAITS : 25 YEARS OF THE BP PORTRAIT AWARD. This publication celebrates excellence in portraiture from brilliant naturalistic work to the deeply expressionistic. Each  portrait, in its own way, is revealing of character and mood.

I can’t recommend this publication highly enough. 500 PORTRAITS : 25 YEARS OF THE BP PORTRAIT AWARD has been published by the National Portrait Gallery, London. Get the revised and updated edition (2015).  ISBN 9781855145702.