How to choose a portrait painter
You want your likeness captured for posterity, but who to choose? The Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ Annual Exhibition, on this week, is a good place to start
(…) Of the 200-plus works on display, only about 30 are by the organisation’s members — the rest are chosen from an open national and international submission by a panel of world-renowned professional portrait artists.
This year, 3,500 paintings and drawings were submitted. The result is a sort of peer-reviewed snapshot of what’s going on among the best of European portraiture, from established artists to the most exciting up-and-coming talent.
But who is buying it? “The ground is shifting somewhat,” says the society’s president, the painter Anthony Connolly. “There will always be institutions who want portraits made for their archives. But alongside that, I think people are interested in painting. Portraits are popular, but beyond the popular, they can be challenging and interesting.”
The exhibition is unique in that its collection of painted and drawn portraits, from a national and international submission, is selected not by the art establishment, by celebrities or media moguls, but by world-renowned, professional portrait painters.
With peer-reviewed paintings chosen through the discerning eye and instinctive sensitivity of other artists, the exhibition arguably showcases the very best painted portraits in Europe – both by established portraiture artists and by the most exciting up-and-coming talent. It is one of the world’s greatest forums for portraiture featuring a broad collection of stylistic and intellectual approaches.
RP Frances Bell, ‘Lily and James’
He says that younger clients are now asking to have their or their partners’ portraits made, “and there’s always been an appetite for having your children drawn and painted, when they’re ten, or perhaps at the point when they’re leaving school or something”.
Commissioning is a remarkably simple process. You can of course contact an artist directly, but the society also provides a consultation service free of charge, because, as its consultant Martina Merelli says, most people “don’t really know what they’re looking for” to start with.
Prospective clients are invited to visit the Mall Galleries and introduced to the work of a selection of artists using boards of their work. “It’s a way for them to see different artists, different mediums, different ways of painting,” Merelli says.
Once the client has worked out what they like, Merelli helps them to winnow down to two or three options based on budget, timescale and so on. The cost can vary wildly: Merelli says that a starting point for an oil painting could be about £3,000, but you should expect to pay at least double that for smaller works by some of the more sought-after artists. Drawings can start in the hundreds, and are popular for children (they can be done faster, accommodating wriggly sitters).
What should you look for? Both Connolly and Merelli say the same thing: “Follow your instinct.”
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RP Annual Exhibition 2023, Mark Sepple photography
