Miriam Escofet wins BP Portrait Award 2018

Miriam Escofet has won the £35,000 BP Portrait Award 2018 for a portrait of her mother Alma. 

She won the First Prize in this prestigious and truly international portrait competition from an entry which included portraits from artists living in 88 countries. Each artist was allowed to submit just one portrait - making 2,667 entries in total....

There was a big cheer when the winner was announced at the Awards Ceremony at the National Portrait Gallery last night - and it's very evident from my Facebook Page that she is a very popular winner

Miriam Escofet with her BP Portrait Award 2018 trophy and her portrait of her mother 

Below you can see a list of the Awards and who won what - but it's not a short post not least because of the number of photos from last night's Awards Ceremony which I attended. You can read more about each of the artists in the profiles contained in BP Portrait Award 2018 - The Shortlist

Over the next few days I'll continue to post about the BP Portrait Exhibition 2018 and the prizewinners. There will be:

• a video of the exhibition and a review of the exhibition 
• plus photos of artists with their paintings 
• and hopefully interviews with one or more of the prizewinners.

You can now see the portraits in the exhibition for yourself online.

Judges: While the initial entry was online, the long list was judged from original paintings by this year’s panel:

• Dr Nicholas Cullinan, Director, National Portrait Gallery (Chair)
• Dr Caroline Bressey, Cultural and Historical Geographer, University College, London
• Rosie Broadley, Head of Collection Displays (Victorian to Contemporary) and Senior Curator, 20th-Century Collections, National Portrait Gallery
• Glenn Brown, Artist
• Rosie Millard, Journalist and Broadcaster
• Des Violaris, Director, UK Arts & Culture, BP

Personally, I'd like to see a return to the more detailed Judges comments on the finalists which we have seen in recent years. If you can distinguish between prizewinners then you must be able to articulate why!

The Awards were presented by guest speaker Lily Cole, with Dr Nicholas Cullinan, Director of the National Portrait Gallery and Bob Dudley, CEO of BP - in some extremely peculiar green lighting!

BP Portrait Award - First Prize: Miriam Escofet 

Miriam Escofet has won the BP Portrait Award First prize of £35,000. In addition, she also has the prospect of being offered a £7,000 portrait commission by the National Portrait Gallery. 

I was pretty confident this painting was going to win first prize and said as much at the shortlisting stage
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