 On a recent trip to London I popped into the National Portrait Gallery and while I was there took theopportunity to go round the Herbet Smith Freehills Portrait Award 2024. This was previously called the BP portrait award but there is a change of sponsor now. It is on until October 2024 and if you are at all interested in contemporary portraiture I would highly recommend you go. It is not a vast show, occupying one room with maybe 20 paintings in all. The quality, as every is very high and I have selected here the ones that, for various reasons stood out for me. The first one I've pictured is called "A Moment" and is by Dawn Beclkes. It is a self portrait (as in fact are a few of the ones I've select). It is one of the pieces the gallery used to publicise the show and it is easy to see why, because with its vibrant, even slightly clashing colours, it is a very eye catching work. I am not actually sure I like it, but I keep looking at it and keep coming back to it. It is odd, the colours as mentioned, but also the downward slightly diffident gaze of the figure. And the number? That is a great device that both shouts at you and draws you in.  The second picture, I really liked. It made me smile. It is very warm and intimate and loving. You look at it and you instantly feel that you know the man in the painting, that you like him (love him in fact) and want to spend time in his company. The warm glow of the colours , in the domestic setting, particularly the orange in the background give a homely feel. As does of course pose and the action of the figure. Then you look at the title. This is, for me anyway, one of those pieces where the title changes how you feel about the painting. It is called "The Last Portrait" by Sasha Sokolva. It is, as the title suggest, the last portrait she did of her grandfather. Completed in fact after he died. The fact he is mostly in shadow perhaps hints at this but once you know this the picture takes on a feeling of gentle, loving, melancholy. It is a wonderful piece and the photo-realistic level of detail is staggering.
A slight criticism on framing. I think Inbar's painting is a little lost in that massive floating frame. Possibly that is intentional but it doesn’t work for me. I think just the discrete light wood of the inner frame would have been enough. I like this painting, it has vulnerability to it and reminds me a little of a renaissance mythic figure. I also like the mottled treatment of the figure and the way he is cut off by the internal framing. It makes you feel like you are right up close to him. Lewis' painting is much more formal. It has a power an prestige to it, no doubt intentional and drawing from renaissance/enlightenment era portraiture. You could easily see this alongside a series of Florentine nobles. The fact that the figure is a black woman does add to this, as by the nature of the figure it subverts (or enhances) the tradition on which it is drawing. She is also a very striking figure. This leads me onto something that is interesting in portraiture. For me part of whether I respond to a portrait is whether I am drawn to or like or feel empathy for the sitter. If for some reason I take against the sitter then I find it difficult to engage with the painting and while I can often appreciate its technical expertise it would resound with me in the way other portraits will. I suppose all paintings have this. If you don't respond to the subject matter then the painting is, on some level, not going to work for you. I think this tendency is enhanced in portraiture thought because you are looking at a person. No doubt our prejudices, both known and unconscious, play a large part in this.  Moving on to something very different. The only nude in my selection (and I believe the only one in the show). This piece called "Jaqueline with Still Life" by Antony Williams won the first prize. I am not sure it would have been my first choice but I can see why it won. Firstly it is quite odd. The pose, and the position of the figure is odd and unusual. It is a sort of domestic setting. The still life selection is also odd, a selection of children's toys. And why the fan? It is painting that invites questions but without being too pretentious or overly intellectual. Williams works with the model shown a lot and there does seem to be an ease and a familiarity to the painting of her. Also she looks slightly bored by the whole thing (at least I think so) which I found amusing. The rendering of the whole thing wish this sort of mottle pastel shading gives a subtlety, which is in tension with the subject matter. I particularly like the way the pillow is done. The whole thing reminds me slightly of Paul Nash (of who I am a bit fan).  I cannot now recall if there were other works in the show with more than one figure. I do not believe so but this painting I really like. It is I think my favourite and were I to be awarding the prize. It would have won. It is called "The Brambles" and is by Lewis Hazlewood-Horner. The blues are inciting, standing out boldly from the rest of the composition. It is the way that the picture captures the swirling motion of the potter, the sense of frantic motions, contrasting with the still figure calmly painting to the right and the sense of serene concentration on both their faces.
Moving on to two striking portraits. The first one (above left) has the slightly baffling title of "I Am because You are" by Ashley Ogilvy. I have to say I don't understand the title and it does somehow take away from the portrait. The garments and the objects on display give us some sense of the identity and the interests of the sitter. I like the way he sort of emerges out of the vague blurred bottom of the painting and his tilted quizzical, relaxed gaze. What really lifts it for me though is the shiny, blotted and blurred silvery background. It really frames the sitter. Very different is "Estuary English" by Ray Richardson (above right). It has a natural dynamism with the figure looming out towards you. The way he has his hands in his pockets and the clothing adds to this sense of naturalism and gives you a real feeling that it is a cold blustery day. It is almost like you've interrupted a conversation between the figure and the artist. The setting adds to this sensation with the oars (at least I think they are oars) and the metal guides leading the eye past the figure into the background of the picture.  Another strident figure who comes out of the canvas at you is Ruth Fitton's "Onward: Self-Portrait from Life" (above). It is a really great picture and I think my second favourite in the show. Well titled as well, the pose says, here I am and here I stand and the determination of the stance is at nice contrast with the soft, almost out of focus style of the painting. I particularly like the little details like the photo of the portrait peaking out from under the sofa. The warm light in the background is also a good touch as it draws you further into the portrait.  "After Image" by Kyle Hackett (above) is in someways a very formal, almost cliched composition, looking like a graduation photo in some respect. The monochrome depiction of the subject and the subdued nature of the composition in general gives an almost ghost like quality. This is a deliberate choice, Hacket is making a deliberate , political statement which I think is obvious in the piece and gives a punch to the work.  Much more ghostlike, in fact elegiac in quality is Monument 3 by Nathan Ford (above). It is beautiful and mournful and speaks of loss and it is therefore unsurprising that is a painting of the artists father, completed several years after his death. This captured very well by the way the figure is fading away, disappearing into the white background.
Its a great show and you until 11th October 2024 to go and see it.
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