BP Portrait Award Announces Prize Money Increase

The National Portrait Gallery has announced an increase in prize money for the BP Portrait Award 2013, the world’s most prestigious open competition for portrait painting. 

The First Prize winner will receive a £30,000 cash prize. As part of BP’s ongoing support for a further five years, the First Prize has been increased by £5,000. In addition, the winner receives, at the judges’ discretion a commission worth £5,000 (to be agreed between the National Portrait Gallery and the artist). The Second Prize winner will receive £10,000 and the BP Young Artist Award winner £7,000. 

The Portrait Award, now in its thirty-fourth year at the National Portrait Gallery and twenty-fourth year of sponsorship by BP, is an annual event aimed at encouraging artists to focus upon and develop portraiture. 

The BP Portrait Award 2013 exhibition will run at the National Portrait Gallery from 20 June to 15 September 2013 and will tour the UK thereafter. 

The BP Portrait Award is open to all artists over the age of 18, and provides an important platform for portrait painters. In 2012, 2,187 artists submitted their work from 75 difference countries and the exhibition, which featured 55 paintings, was seen by over a quarter of a million people.