Raw Umber Prize - The Royal Society of Portrait Painters

The Raw Umber Studios Prize: Raw Umber Studios believes that the most exciting contemporary portraiture lies at the intersection of technical excellence and creative expression.

Their annual prize, inaugurated in 2023, encourages and rewards such work.
Value £2,000.

2024 Winner: Nashunmenghe, ‘Elizabeth 2024’

2023 Winner: Simon Davis ‘Warren Ellis’

Category: Prizes

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Royal Society of Portrait Painters

To promote the practice of and further excellence in painted portraiture

Royal Society of Portrait Painters

6 days ago

🏛️Our Annual exhibition is NOW OPEN!🤩 ... Open from today until 18 May.@mallgalleries🌐Our Annual Exhibition showcases the very best painted and drawn portraits selected from national and international submissions so you won't want to miss out on seeing these beauties in person.🦋 👨‍🎨Want to commission a portrait with us?Contact Martina Merelli-Stevens, Fine Art Commissions Manager, who is on site from today to meet and advise you! [email protected]Today we would also like to announce the shortlist of artists for our main prizes...The William Lock Portrait Prize; £20,000 for the most timeless portrait with a real feeling for paint and its aesthetic potential. & The Ondaatje Prize for Portraiture; Sponsored by Sir Christopher Ondaatje CBE OC and the Ondaatje Foundation, this generous prize of £10,000 plus the Society’s Gold Medal is awarded for the most distinguished portrait of the year:-JAMIE CORETH @jrcoreth-DAVID GRAHAM RP-JAMES HAGUE RP @jameshagueartist-BENJAMIN HOPE RP @benhopeartist-ANDREW JAMES RP @andrewrpneac-JEANNIE KINSLER @jeanniekinsler-TANIA RIVILIS @tania_rivilis-MARK SHIELDSCongratulations and good luck to all 8 artists who have been shortlisted. The announcement will be on Thursday 16th May between 7.30-8pm [Event Sold Out]“No year is ever the same but there is something reassuringly constant about the RP show. Don’t conflate constancy with anything ordinary, however. You will see fresh and sometimes surprising work by painters you know well, and you’ll see portraits by artists who are new to you.”-Anthony Connolly – President Images: 1+2. Jamie Coreth, 'My Life: Portrait of Issy and Clare'3. David Graham, 'Pearl'4. James Hague, 'Woman in Komono'5. Benjamin Hope, 'Simon'6. Andrew James, 'Reverie'7. Jeannie Kinsler, 'Fortitude'9. Tania Rivilis, 'Poetic Demeanour' 10. Mark Shields, 'Companion' ... See MoreSee Less

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Royal Society of Portrait Painters

6 days ago

ArtistSpotlight: Our Annual Exhibition OPENS TOMORROW and today we share 1 of 120 non-member exhibiting artist's... @lauraarensonart's deeply powerful portrait!👂😱 You won't want to miss seeing this one in person!When?9 - 8 May,10 am - 5 pm@mallgalleriesHere's some insight to Laura's exhibiting work..."In 1944 the Nazis and their Hungarian collaborators organised the deportation of Hungarian Jews: in less than two months from mid-May 1944, almost all Jews were deported, mostly to Auschwitz-Birkenau. When Susan's family were ordered to leave their home, they still hoped that they would be allowed to resettle elsewhere. Susan was first sent to a ghetto in Vác and from there to a prison camp. In late May 1944, Susan and her family were sent by cattle truck to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In the waggons the sounds were crying, praying, and pleading to God. Susan and her mother did not speak – they had nothing to say. She clung to her and wanted to lose herself in her mother's embrace. On arrival they scrambled out of the trucks, and men and women were separated immediately. Susan was also then separated from her mother who was sent to join a group of elderly prisoners. Susan was left on her own, surrounded by shouting, not comprehending anything. She felt pure terror and devastation. She soon learned that her mother had been sent directly to the gas chambers. From Auschwitz Susan was later sent to Guben in Germany to work as a slave labourer in an armaments factory. With the Allies advancing, Susan and the other prisoners were forced on a death march to Bergen-Belsen. On 15 April 1945 she was liberated by the British army. She crawled towards her liberators, unable to walk and close to death. She was hospitalised for tuberculosis, typhoid and severe malnutrition. Susan was left with nothing. Over 50 members of her family had been murdered. Only she and her brother survived. Now, aged 93, Susan lives in London and has spent over 30 years testifying in schools across the UK to ensure that young people bear witness to these unimaginable truths. The theatre company 'Voices of the Holocaust' have created a play about Susan's life experience, which since its premiere in 2022, has already been performed to over 27,000 school children across the country. Sitting with Susan at the Holocaust Survivors Centre in London whilst painting her portrait a few days after the hostages in Israel were tragically captured on October 7th 2023, Susan reflected, “hatred never wins in the end”. It was a true honour to spend time with Susan and learn her profoundly moving story. Through her trauma she has learned that life is precious – you can go in one of two ways – up or down. Susan chose to walk away and rebuild her life. There was no revenge, and no justice. My wish is that through painting her portrait, Susan's story of extraordinary resilience and courage, her pain and loss as well as her dignity, hope and kindness will continue to be shared. -Laura Arenson🎨Our exhibition will be offering several prestigious prizes and an excellent opportunity for commissions.Contact Martina Merelli, Fine Art Commissions Manager for any commission enquires - she will also be on site during our annual show from next week to meet and advice you! Image: Laura Arenson, 'Hatred Never Wins In The End. Susan Pollack, OBE. Survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau' ... See MoreSee Less

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Royal Society of Portrait Painters

1 week ago

2daysaway: Today we share RP @andrewrpneac (Andrew James's) wonderfully expressive portraits for this years Annual Exhibition! 👨‍🎨 The Mall Galleries is a welcoming space for both established and emerging talent.As one of the world’s great forums for portraiture, the annual exhibition showcases the very best painted and drawn portraits selected from national and international submissions. When?From THIS THURSDAY 9 - 18 May,10am - 5pm,Booking is not required. £5, Free for Friends of Mall Galleries and under 25s. Concessions available. @mallgalleries🎫Andrew will also be holding a Portrait Demonstration during the exhibition... When?Friday 10 May, 2 - 4pmFree with admission, no booking required.Demonstrating his technique of applying oil to canvas using brushes and knives to transform isolated layers of colour into energetic depictions of his sitters.Andrew is a highly sought after artist, who has worked on many prestigious commissions of public figures. Wonderfully passionate, he is renowned for capturing incredible likenesses of subjects through his sumptuously rigorous and painterly approach. Go to our website; www.therp.co.uk or follow the link in our bio to find out more including all events happening during exhibition. You can also purchase our exhibition catalogue via our website NOW....We will see you oh so very soon!😜 Images: Andrew James, 'Reverie', 'Polly, the Young Artist', 'My Father' ... See MoreSee Less

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Royal Society of Portrait Painters

1 week ago

#Seeyousoon: RP @toby_wiggins_art has shared his exquisite portrait of 'Alfie Pierreson’ ahead of our Annual Exhibition on from this Wednesday 9 May, with plenty of insight below so be sure to have a read!📖 "This is the first commission that has derived from social media directly...Alfie’s mum, Tyler, contacted me to commission a portrait to celebrate and to capture her son at the age of 14, having seen two portraits of my nephews at similar ages. Tyler was aware that her child was swiftly changing into a young adult; not only a huge change for him, but for their relationship and her role as a mother. There is a sense in which both the child and future adult is present in Alfie’s face; his features and expressions. A truly magical stage in human development and one that is fleeting. Tyler was quite emotional when she saw the finished portrait which was extremely gratifying for me as I guess I had managed to capture her son as she knew him in that moment. My approach was to make a drawing from life, which took an afternoon. The result may or may not be ‘successful’, but the point of such a ‘working drawing’ is the information that it reveals about the sitter which leads, hopefully, to a successful portrait. Drawing forces you to look intensely for a sustained period and discover your subject.I painted on gesso panel. There is an angularity and yet delicacy to Alfie’s face that I felt I could better explain through working on a hard surface. I was able to start with broad gestures, pushing the paint around, hammer it down, applying impasto layers that were often scraped back. I used heavily loaded brushes, but also small sharp palette knives to create a necessary clarity and harder edges. More subtle adjustments in colour and tone were achieved by glazing and working with small soft brushes and thinned paint.An unconscious result of these efforts is a well worked surface that reveals layers of painting and in some sense the history of its making."-Toby Wiggins RP👀Visit @mallgalleries from THIS Wednesday 9-18 MayFor events occurring during exhibition; www.therp.co.uk Image: Toby Wiggins, ‘Alfie Pierreson’, oil on gesso panel ... See MoreSee Less

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Royal Society of Portrait Painters

1 week ago

#ArtistSpotlight: Our Annual Exhibition is getting closer and closer! 😱🪄 🌐With only the best top-tier painted and drawn portraits, selected from national and international submissions.This year, over 125 paintings have been meticulously chosen from a pool of over 3,500 submissions 👀 Today we share 1 of 120 non-member exhibiting artist portrait and story James Coreth..."It was painted during Issy’s pregnancy with our first child, Kasper, who was born in March this year. Issy and Clare have a beautifully close friendship as mother and daughter, and I wanted to capture this relationship, which felt all the more poignant with the prospect of the birth of a new generation. The sittings took place during a difficult period of time in the pregnancy. I felt how pertinent their bond was at this time and that the place for maternal support never ends between a mother and her child. I tried to capture a sense of closeness and connection between the two and referenced time, and the childhood objects that can accompany people throughout their lives. I painted an anamorphic image of Kasper’s scan onto the top of the painting. With reference to the skull in Holbein’s ‘Ambassadors’, the distorted image is viewed in it’s proper dimensions from the side of the picture, and is intended to connect to the idea that, as with death, the experience of pre-life is simply unknowable and therefore seen from another perspective.The title ‘My Life’ is at once meant to refer to the way Clare’s refers to her daughter as ‘My Life’ and also Issy’s existence, and the life that is to come with Kasper.I painted the picture in oil paint on linen. I’m a painter who is based in Wiltshire and have been practicing my art professionally since 2014. I studied Archaeology and Anthropology at Oxford university before turning to portraiture. One of my principal interests during my degree was Palaeolithic cave art. Certain features of the very first art forms are found in paintings from disparate cultures around the world. One of those features is hand prints. A theory on hand prints is that it connected the creators to the surface of the rocks upon which they painted. Those painted surfaces were, for them, like veils into another world. I find this a fascinating concept and it lead me to include my own hand print in this painting too."-James Coreth🌐 And don't forget that we have some events happening during exhibition - go to our website to find out more... www.therp.co.uk🗓️ Exhibition dates:9 May to 18 May 2024 Images: James Coreth, '“My Life” - Portrait of Issy' ... See MoreSee Less

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