BP Portrait Award exhibition returns to Aberdeen
27/11/08
The BP Portrait Award 2008 exhibition, one of the world’s most prestigious art prizes, returns to Aberdeen Art Gallery, Schoolhill, on Saturday, 29 November.
The Portrait Award, now in its 29th year at the National Portrait Gallery and 19th year of sponsorship by BP, is a highly successful annual competition aimed at encouraging artists to focus upon, and develop, the theme of painted portraiture within their work.
The eagerly anticipated exhibition, which showcases some of the top artistic talent from home and abroad, is the Art Gallery’s major winter show.
This year’s competition attracted 1,727 entries from painters specialising in the field of portraiture, compared to 1,113 last year. Of those, 55 portraits have been selected for display.
The winning portraits by the first, second and third prize winners will be on show alongside the work of the joint winners of the BP Travel Award 2007.
The winner of the BP Portrait Award 2008 was 35-year old London artist Craig Wylie. His winning portrait, K, is an epic study of his girlfriend Katherine Raw. Craig won £25,000 and a commission, at the National Portrait Gallery Trustees’ discretion, worth £4,000.
The second prize of £8,000 went to Simon Davis for Portrait of Amanda Smith at Vincent Avenue and the third prize of £6,000 went to Robert O’Brien for Hannah O’Brien.
There was, also for only the second time, a BP Young Artist Award of £5,000 for the work of an entrant aged between 18 and 30. This was won by Peiyuan Jiang for Untitled.
Tim Smith, External Affairs Director for BP Scotland, said: We are delighted to be bringing the prestigious BP Portrait Award to Aberdeen again following a short break in 2007. This year’s awards attracted a record number of entrants from artists across all ages. The quality and variety of entries shows that portraiture continues to thrive in the UK and internationally.
“We are delighted that local artist Barry McGlashan was selected to exhibit from the 1,727 entries.”
Art Gallery and Museums manager, Christine Rew, said: “The BP Portrait Award 2008 has produced again an amazing and diverse range of contemporary portraits. We are delighted to be working with the National Portrait Gallery and BP to host the exhibition’s only Scottish showing at Aberdeen Art Gallery.”
Fort the first time there were two winners of the BP Travel Award 2007, Gareth Reid and Timothy Hyman. Gareth Reid spent three weeks touring the ‘winter-swimming clubs’ of Finland where thousands of members dive into bitterly cold avannot (water-holes) in otherwise frozen lakes and rivers.
Taking in the clubs at Helsinki, Oulu, Kajaani, Kuopio, Jyvaskyla, Tampere and Turku, Reid painted portraits of brave members who regularly swam in temperatures of -10 degrees. In order to paint them Reid was persuaded to join in.
Reid won the award jointly with Timothy Hyman who revisited India to paint a large commemorate portrait of a close-knit group of artists centered around the painter Bhupen Khakhar with whom he had worked in the 1980s. Hyman returned in 2007 and had the idea of reuniting and portraying members of the group.
Reid and Hyman each received £3,500 each as joint winners of the BP Travel Award 2007, which was the first time it had been awarded to two artists. Each year, artists exhibited at the BP Portrait Award are invited to submit a proposal for the BP Travel Award. The aim of the award is to give an artist the opportunity to experience working in a different environment, in Britain or abroad, on a project related to portraiture.
• The exhibition will run from Saturday, 29 November 2008 until Saturday, 24 January 2009
• It is a National Portrait Gallery touring exhibition supported by BP
• A fully illustrated book accompanies the exhibition. It includes 67 colour illustrations, price £7.99 (pbk) from the Gallery Shop
Aberdeen Art Gallery, Schoolhill
Open Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 5pm
Sunday – 2pm – 5pm
Closed Monday
Admission is free
If you have any queries regarding this, or any other news story, please contact Aberdeen City Council on: 01224 522000.
