BP Portrait Award 2009

National Portrait Gallery
18 June-20 September
Free entry

This annual open-submission award for portrait painters is currently exhibiting at the National Portrait Gallery.

Out of over 1,900 entries there are 56 portraits on display including, Changeling 2, by this year’s winner, 44-year-old art teacher Peter Monkman, which is part of a series of portraits of his daughter, Anna, at different stages of her life.

With a first prize of £25,000, the portrait competition is deemed to be the most prestigious in the world and has helped launch the careers of a number of successful portrait artists.

The portraits depict intimate and personal images of friends and family, as well as portraits of celebrity sitters such as Lee Fether’s portrait of Gail Porter.