BP Portrait Award 2015

Book excerpt: The BP Portrait Award, now in its thirty-sixth year, is one of Britain's most prestigious art prizes, and is the leading showcase for artists throughout the world specialising in portraiture. In 2014 more than 280,000 people visited the exhibition based on the competition open to all artists aged eighteen and over from around the world. The catalogue features fifty-five works from an international list of artists, which together display a diverse range of styles and painterly techniques. It also includes an essay, an illustrated interview with the previous year's Travel Award winner and interviews with the prizewinners by Richard McClure, which give further insight into the artists behind the portraits.