BP Portrait Award

The BP Portrait Award was an annual portraiture competition held at the National Portrait Gallery in London, England. It is the successor to the John Player Portrait Award. It is the most important portrait prize in the world, and is reputedly one of the most prestigious competitions in contemporary art. Starting in 2024, the National Portrait Gallery's portrait competition resumed under the new sponsorship of international law firm Herbert Smith Freehills.

History British Petroleum took over sponsorship of the competition in 1989 from John Player & Sons, a tobacco company which had sponsored it from its inception in 1980, and has sponsored it since. The presence of both sponsors has triggered protests, with the group Art Not Oil (part of the international Rising Tide network) being responsible for most of those against BP. In 2016, The Museums Association conducted a formal investigation into BP's sponsorship when Art Not Oil alleged that the company influenced curatorial decisions and used its association with the National Gallery to further its political interests both domestic and international.

The exhibition opens in June each year and runs until September. First prize is typically £30,000. In the early years of the century, the prize went up from £5,000, and its catchment area was gradually extended from residents of the UK and is now unrestricted. Until 2006, the competition has been open to under-40s only. Since 2007, it is open to anyone over the age of 18 and a separate BP Young Artist Award is granted to the best portrait artist between 18 and 30.

In 1993, Tom Hallifax was used to advertise the awards.

In 2009, Dan Llywelyn Hall's portrait of the last living Tommy, Harry Patch widely used for advertising. Patch died during the run of the exhibition.

In 2012 the competition received 2,187 entries from 74 countries (including 1,500 from the UK) of which 55 paintings were selected to be exhibited.

Winners John Player Portrait Award 1980 – Margaret Foreman 1981 1982 – Humphrey Ocean 1983 – Michael R. Taylor 1984 – Rosemary Beaton 1985 – Jeff Stultiens 1986 – Ivy Smith 1987 – Alison Watt 1988 – Allan Ramsay 1989 – Paula MacArthur & Tai-Shan Schierenberg – joint first prize winners

BP Portrait Award 1990 – Annabel Cullen 1991 – Justin Mortimer 1992 – Lucy Willis 1993 – Philip Harris 1994 – Peter Edwards 1995 – Ishbel Myerscough 1996 – James Hague 1997 – James Lloyd 1998 – Thomas Watson 1999 – Clive Smith 2000 – Victoria Russell 2001 – Stuart Pearson Wright 2002 – Catherine Goodman 2003 – Charlotte Harris 2004 – Stephen Shankland 2005 – Dean Marsh 2006 – Andrew Tift 2007 – Paul Emsley 2008 – Craig Wylie and Praneet Arora 2009 – Peter Monkman 2010 – Daphne Todd 2011 – Wim Heldens 2012 – Aleah Chapin 2013 – Susanne du Toit 2014 – Thomas Ganter 2015 – Matan Ben-Cnaan 2016 – Clara Drummond 2017 – Benjamin Sullivan 2018 – Miriam Escofet 2019 – Charlie Schaffer 2020 – Jiab Prachakul

SELF Portrait Prize 2013 Jan MikulkaThe Royal Society of Portrait Painters: Jan Mikulka: SELF, 2013

Selected works

It has become a BP Portrait Awards convention that a single work is selected to be used prominently on that year's posters and other publicity materials, and for the cover of the year's exhibition catalogue. Recent "showcase" portraits include:

2004 – "Caroline" by James E Crowther 2005 – "Portrait of Chantal Menard" by Sean Cheetham 2006 – "Matthew" by Ben Jamie 2007 – "Winter Portrait" by Ingolv Helland 2008 – "Konjit" by Maryam Foroozanfar 2009 – "Last Tommy" by Dan Llywelyn Hall / "Georgie" by Mary Jane Ansell / "On Assi Ghat" by Edward Sutcliffe (used by National Gallery Scotland) 2010 – "Blue Coco" by Shaun Downey 2011 – "Geneva" by Ilaria Rosselli del Turco 2012 – "Rosie and Pumpkin" by Vanessa Lubach / "Richie Culver" by Alan Coulson 2013 – "Inner Dialogue" by Jamie Routley 2014 – "Engels" by Patrik Graham / "Gina and Cristiano" by Isabella Watling (used by National Gallery Scotland) 2015 – "Portrait of Esta Sexton, aged 12" by Paul P Smith 2016 – "Francesca" by Daniele Vezzani / "Tad (Son Of The Artist)" by John Borowicz (used by National Gallery Scotland) 2017 – "Lemn Sissay" by Fiona Graham-Mackay 2018 – "Laura" by Shawn McGovern 2019 – "Manresa" by Frances Borden

BP Visitor Choice Each year, the BP Visitor Choice competition offers visitors to the highly popular BP Portrait Award exhibition the opportunity to vote for their favourite portrait in the exhibition.

2006 – Vanessa Garwood 2007 – Hynek Martinec 2008 – José Luis Corella 2009 – José Luis Corella 2010 – Michal Ožibko 2011 – Jan Mikulka 2012 – Colin Davidson 2013 – Lionel Smit 2014 – Yunsung Jang 2015 – José Luis Corella 2016 – Jean-Paul Tibbles 2017 – Rupert Alexander

BP Travel Award The BP Travel Award is an annual award allowing artists to experience working in a different environment on a project related to portraiture. The successful applicants work is exhibited at the Portrait Gallery the following year. Country of each artists project shown in brackets below.

1998 – Stuart Pearson Wright (UK) 2000 – Si Sapsford (Iceland) 2001 – Alan Parker (UK) 2002 – Daisy Richardson & Jessica Wolfson (Russia/China) 2003 – Ulyana Gumeniuk (Russia) 2004 – Darvish Fakhr (Iran) 2005 – Joel Ely (Spain) 2006 – Toby Wiggins (UK) 2007 – Gareth Reid (Finland) 2008 – Emmanouil Bitsakis (China) 2009 – Isobel Peachey (Belgium/Switzerland) 2010 – Paul Beel (Greece) 2011 – Jo Fraser (Peru) 2012 – Carl Randall (Japan) 2013 – Sophie Ploeg (The Netherlands/UK) 2014 – Edward Sutcliffe (US) 2015 – Magali Cazo (West Africa) 2016 – Laura Guokė (Lithuania)

BP Portrait Award

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