Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition 2021 | Prize & Award Winners
/ Royal Society of Portrait Painters
The Royal Society of Portrait Painters and Mall Galleries are delighted to announce the Prizes & Awards from the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition 2021.
Congratulations to all artists who have been awarded prizes by our generous prize givers.
The exhibition is open at Mall Galleries until Saturday 15 May.
If you cannot make the exhibition we hope that with videos, audio, images, and statements by the winners to watch, hear, see, and read, you can experience and enjoy their works wherever you are.
The exhibition is available to browse & buy now.
The William Lock Portrait Prize
Frances Bell RP
Self Portrait
£20,000 for the most timeless portrait with a real feeling for paint and its aesthetic potential.
The Ondaatje Prize for Portraiture
Saied Dai RP NEAC
Portrait of the Artist's Wife
£10,000 plus the Society’s Gold Medal awarded for the most distinguished portrait in the Society’s annual exhibition.
Commission a Portrait by Saied Dai RP NEAC
The RP Award
Phoebe Dickinson
Alethea
£2,000 awarded to the artist whose work best represents the year's chosen theme - which for 2021 is 'Childhood'. The judges looked for the most interesting and engaging interpretation of the idea of 'childhood' within the parameters of portraiture.
Commission a portrait by Phoebe Dickinson
The RP Prize for the Best Small Portrait
Will Calver
Self Portrait in Hat
A prize of £2,000 for the best small portrait in the exhibition, measuring not more than 38 x 30.5 cm (15 x 12 inches) unframed.
Self Portrait in Hat is a small oil painting on linen, painted from life from an old mirror in my studio during the winter lockdown.
Over the last year, painting alone in the studio had begun to feel especially introspective, so I chose to turn my attention from still life to the mirror. I usually seek a sense of stillness and quietude in my still life paintings, and I tried in this painting to turn that same approach to a self-portrait.
I am so happy to be exhibiting at this year’s exhibition, especially alongside so many artists that I really look up to, and to have been given the ‘Best Small Portrait’ award feels like such a huge honour.
I would like to say a big thank you to Mall Galleries and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, and I hope you enjoy the exhibition if you can make it.
The de Laszlo Foundation Award
Marco Bizzarri
Silente I
£3,000 plus a Silver Medal for the most outstanding portrait by an artist aged 35 years or under.
“Silente I” is a large-format work painted in acrylic on canvas. The way the face is painted allows the image to be seen just from the distance, because if you look at the painting closely, you can only see stains.
Therefore, this gesture tells us about our own indifference when looking. Thus, my intention is to show a daily reality: the constant blinding in front of what surrounds us.
The painting works as a metaphor for that estrangement, one that doesn’t allow us to perceive beyond our own needs, conditioned by personal shortcomings
The stain is an expression of that permanent indolence, it is the curtain that only allows us to notice silhouettes.
The Prince of Wales's Award for Portrait Drawing
Mantas Poderys
Self Portrait at the Age of 28
£2,000 and framed certificate for a portrait in any recognised drawing medium.
Commission a portrait by Mantas Poderys
Burke's Peerage Foundation Award
Rupert Alexander
Jack Hudleston
The Burke’s Peerage Foundation Award, established by its founders William Bortrick and Mark Ayre in 2015, is presented for Classically Inspired Portraiture in the RP Annual Exhibition. It is presented each year with a certificate and a cheque for £2,000.
Commission a portrait by Rupert Alexander
Smallwood Architects Prize
Sandra Kuck
Portrait through a Prism
£1,000 for a portrait in which architectural or interior features play an important part.
Commission a portrait by Sandra Kuck