Who Is at Fault, the Artists or Judges? ; the Four Paintings Short-Listed for This Year's Bp Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery Are Not the Best of the 53 On Show. We Should Be Questioning the Suitability of the Judges
Summary
THE BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery is the most enlightened annual act of patronage in Britain. In its 24th year, it is also the most faithful, for any patron less devoted to the cause, less stubborn, less adamant, would have withdrawn long since, having recognised that the award has had not the slightest effect on portraiture and that the quality of the portraits exhibited has inexorably fallen away. If it has achieved anything, it has been, perhaps, to slow the decline from a gallop to a trot.
This year, of the 53 entries on view, I have noted only 10 as having merit; of the others, 18 are ghastly, nine might as well be photographs, and the rest fall into the limbo of my indifference to their dreary, uninspired competence.See the full content of this document
Extract
Who Is at Fault, the Artists or Judges? ; the Four Paintings Short-Listed for This Year's Bp Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery Are Not the Best of the 53 On Show. We Should Be Questioning the Suitability of the Judges
How can it be that of the 955 portraits submitted, so few are worth a second glance? Are the painters really so feeble, or are the judges at fault? It used to be said that an open exhibition could only be as good as the best pictures submitted, but the short list of four painters for the prizes suggests, yet again, that the judges are culpable, for these are far weaker than the 10 that I think best. Year after year I have disagreed with the short lists, though perhaps c...
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