RP CRITICAL WRITING PRIZE

RP CRITICAL WRITING PRIZE
WINNER ANNOUNCED

 

“The Royal Society of Portrait Painters launched the RP Critical Writing Prize in March this year.

We invited submissions on any aspect of the contemporary painted portrait and particularly texts which are enquiring, provoking and jargon-free.

The Judges; the art critic, Laura Gascoigne, Dr Alison Smith from the NPG, Professor Alexander Marr from Cambridge University and myself were delighted by the imagination, breadth and quality of the submissions.

In September we shortlisted three writers and invited them to submit their proposals as finished essays.

The finalists are Victoria Baena, who wrote about the notion of eminence in relation to the NPG’s collection, Daniel Newsham, whose essay examines the role of the painted portrait in political discourse and Anna Godfrey who reviewed Kudzanai-Violet Hwami’s exhibition ‘A Making of Ghosts’ at the Victoria Miro gallery.

I am now delighted to announce that the winner of the first RP Critical Writing Prize is Daniel Newsham for his startling and insightful commentary on political portraiture, ‘The State of the Art’.

CONGRATULATIONS TO DANIEL NEWSHAM

Victoria Baena and Anna Godfrey both receive Special Mention Awards of £250 and Daniel Newsham receives £500.

All the essays will be published in the Jackdaw Magazine and in the Society’s 2024 exhibition catalogue.

They will also be available on the RP website.

Huge thanks to all who submitted their proposals and congratulations to the three prize winners.”

-Anthony Connolly,
President ~ The Royal Society of Portrait painters

 

---