BP Portrait Award 2010

Annual exhibition for this prize for portrait painting at the National Portrait Gallery .

I thought this years exhibition was very good as there were less abstract works than previous years. Here seemed to be an emphasis on busy backgrounds such as wallpaper or skulls and quite closely cropped faces.

Despite this my favourite was “Mary” by Wendy Elia which was a picture of her mother aged 87 with her favourite things around her such as her grandchild, her dogs and her Land Army medal. I must admit the baby was a bit scarey!

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