Third Prize

Hugo
by Benjamin Sullivan, 2016
Oil on canvas
460 x 360mm

Third Prize: £8,000

Grimsby-born Benjamin Sullivan, who lives in Suffolk, gained a BA (Hons) in Drawing and Painting from Edinburgh College of Art. Benjamin’s work has been seen regularly in the exhibitions of the New English Art Club, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and he has previously been selected twelve times for the BP Portrait Award in 2002 and 2006 to 2015. His portrait of the cosmologist and astrophysicist Professor Martin Rees was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery in 2008.

Benjamin’s portrait of the poet Hugo Williams was painted in the study of the sitter’s Islington home. Benjamin had been an admirer of Williams’ poetry, especially the Billy’s Rain collection, and Williams agreed to sit for a portrait after they were introduced at a private view in 2014.

The judges said: ‘Finely rendered on a small scale, we thought the portrait gave us a strong sense of the presence of the sitter. The painting’s ageless quality is subtly balanced by the appearance of the modern wrist-watch.’