500 Portraits - BP Portrait Award

Author

Sandy Nairne is Director of the National Portrait Gallery. He was previously Director: Programmes at Tate, London, and is well known for his innovative television series and book State of the Art.

Specifications

Pub. date: 4th July 2011
Price: £25
ISBN: 978 1 85514 448 4
Format: 229 x 170mm
Extent: 320 pages
Illustrations: 532 colour illustrations
Binding: Jacketed hardback
Category: Contemporary Art
Word count: 20,300

Out of print

500 Portraits - BP Portrait Award
Sandy Nairne

500 Portraits presents a unique selection of some of the most exciting contemporary portraits selected for the National Portrait Gallery’s annual competition. The BP Portrait Award is the world’s leading showcase for artists working in portraiture. During the past 20 years, over 20,000 artists have entered the prize, which has attracted over 3 million visitors. This new book brings together some of these portraits in a celebration of our enduring fascination with different human faces.

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.

This product is supplied by the National Portrait Gallery Company Limited. Every purchase supports the National Portrait Gallery.