The BP Portrait Award was an annual

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better r ...

ure competition held at the

National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: * National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra * National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, England. 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 a term used to describe the art of today, generally referring to art produced from the 1970s onwards. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a ...

. Starting in 2024, the National Portrait Gallery's portrait competition resumed under the new sponsorship of international law firm

Herbert Smith Freehills Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer LLP (HSFK) is a global law firm with headquarters in London, England and Sydney, Australia. As of 2024, the firm was the 33rd largest by revenue. It was formed on 1 October 2012 by a merger between the United Kin ...

History

British Petroleum BP p.l.c. (formerly The British Petroleum Company p.l.c. and BP Amoco p.l.c.; stylised in all lowercase) is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. It is one of the oil and gas " supermajors" and one of ...

took over sponsorship of the competition in 1989 from John Player & Sons, 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, exhibiti ...

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 Tom Hallifax (born 1965) is an Anglo-Irish contemporary artist who came to prominence in 1993 when his gurning self-portraits were used to publicise the National Portrait Gallery's BP Portrait Award Exhibition. Hallifax, who has lived and worke ...

was used to advertise the awards. The Last Tommy - Harry Patch

In 2009, Dan Llywelyn Hall's portrait of the last living Tommy, Harry Patch widely used for advertising. Patch died during the run of the exhibition. 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 Allan Ramsay may refer to: *Allan Ramsay (poet) or Allan Ramsay the Elder (1686–1758), Scottish poet *Allan Ramsay (artist) Allan Ramsay (13 October 171310 August 1784) was a Scottish portrait Painting, painter. Life and career Ramsay w ...

*1989 – Paula MacArthur & Tai-Shan Schierenberg – joint first prize winners

BP Portrait Award

*1990 – Annabel Cullen *1991 – Justin Mortimer *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 *2003 – Charlotte Harris *2004 – Stephen Shankland *2005 – Dean Marsh *2006 – Andrew Tift *2007 – Paul Emsley *2008 – Craig Wylie and Praneet Arora *2009 – Peter Monkman *2010 – Daphne Todd *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 – "Last Tommy" by Dan Llywelyn Hall / "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 (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 Jo Fraser (born 12 December 1986) is a Scottish painter. She won the BP Portrait Award Travel Award 2011 in London. Biography Jo Fraser is a Scottish Portrait Artist, most notably winning The BP Portrait Travel Award at The BP Portrait Awa ...

(Peru) *2012 – Carl Randall (Japan) *2013 – Sophie Ploeg (The Netherlands/UK) *2014 – Edward Sutcliffe (US) *2015 – Magali Cazo (West Africa) *2016 – Laura Guokė (Lithuania)

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 visual arts awards Culture in London National Portrait Gallery, London Awards established in 1980 1980 establishments in the United Kingdom