The National Portrait Gallery invites entries for the BP Portrait Award 2019. The prize money for the Award currently stands at one of the largest for any global arts competitions, with first prize being £35,000, second prize £12,000; third prize £10,000; the BP Young Artist Award, awarded to one selected artist aged between 18 and 30, £9,000, and the BP Travel Award £8,000.
2019 will mark the Portrait Award’s 40th year at the National Portrait Gallery and 30th year of sponsorship by BP. This annual event is aimed at encouraging artists over the age of eighteen to focus upon and develop portraiture in their work. The competition has a huge international reach, the 2018 competition received 2,667 entries from 88 countries.
To enter, artists are invited to upload a photograph of their finished painting to the BP Portrait Award website, which will be viewed anonymously by the judges in the first round of the competition. The entrants who are successful in this round will then be invited to hand-deliver or courier their work to a venue in London for the second round of judging and final exhibition selection.
Artists can enter at npg.org.uk/bp between now and 21 January 2019. Full competition rules and guidance for digital submission can be found online. The BP Portrait Award 2019 exhibition will run at the National Portrait Gallery from 13 June to 20 October 2019.