This beautifully produced compendium features 500 paintings from many of the best
figurative artists active over the last twenty-one years. Reflecting the diverse methods of
contemporary portrait practice, the book includes a dazzling array of styles, from
immaculate photorealism to intense expressionism.
The BP Portrait Award is one of Britain’s most prestigious art prizes, and each year
nearly 300,000 people visit the exhibition based on the competition. It has acted as a
springboard for many painters’ careers, notably the prize-winners who have been
subsequently commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery to paint an eminent sitter.
This book includes full-colour reproductions of many of those commissions – including
paintings of Dame Helen Mirren, J.K. Rowling, Sir Michael Caine, Fiona Shaw, Sir Ian
McKellen, Sir Paul Smith and Dame Cicely Saunders.
As well as these high-profile commissions, the book features an inspiring wealth of
subjects: unflinching self-portraits, warm portrayals of children and babies,
conversation pieces, studies of people at home and at work – a rich and varied
selection of hundreds of faces by some of the finest portrait painters of our time.
