National Portrait Gallery

The National Portrait Gallery is scheduled to reopen in July 2006, and emulating their namesakes in England and Scotland, they are now institutionalizing and sponsoring a major new national competition for painted and sculpture portraits: The Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition.

One portrait completed since January 1, 2004 may be entered between June 1 and September 6, 2005. Winner will receive $25,000 commission to complete a portrait for the Gallery's collection. Smaller awards for other finalists. Entry fee is $25 for online entries and $35 for snail mail entries.

Up to 500 paper entry forms accompanied by slides of the portrait will be accepted. Submit one or two slides for a painting and up to four slides for a sculpture. A paper entry form must be requested via e-mail from portraitcompetition@npg.si.edu after May 15, 2005. The entry fee will be $35, payable by credit card, certified check, or money order.

The Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2006 will be judged in two stages. First, a panel of experts will use an online jurying system to select approximately 120 semifinalist works. The Gallery will then arrange to ship these paintings and sculptures to Washington, D.C., where the panel will meet again in early March of 2006 to select the 50-60 finalists. These works will be installed in the National Portrait Gallery’s newly renovated second-floor special exhibition galleries.

Details here. I think that it is a shame that only two genres (painting and sculpture) are being admitted to the competition. That decision leaves out the potential for the NPG to explore other rich and vibrant genres like printmaking, collage, photography, even video.

Insider's Hint: I know one of these jurors quite well, and at least in that juror's perspective, he/she will be looking for portraits that really "expand" the definition of portraiture. I will be really, really surprised if a "traditional" portrait is chosen; but I could be wrong.

Don't Mess with the (Russian Orthodox) Church!

(Thanks Joseph)

"The director of the Sakharov Museum was convicted Monday of inciting religious hatred with a controversial art exhibition that was deemed "blasphemous and profane" by the Russian Orthodox Church.

A federal district court fined museum director Yuri Samodurov and curator Lyudmila Vasilovskaya $3,600 each for organizing the 2003 exhibit, which featured dozens of artists' expressions on the subject of religion."

Read the story here. Password available here.

New Website

I keep forgetting to mention it, but our galleries website has been completely redesigned and relaunched.

New website has been designed by Mark Jenkins. Check it out here.

Art Prizes

Chris from Zeke's Gallery in Canada, has an interesting posting with a listing of a variety of American and International Art Prizes, links and the most recent winners.

See it here.

Congratulations

To Janet Solinger, now Vice President, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Public Programs, and who previously directed the now-national Smithsonian Resident Associate Program from 1972–1992.

Ms. Solinger has been selected to receive DC ArtTable's "ArtSpark" award, given to women who have achieved a distinguished career and made significant contributions to art in America.

New Art BLOG

Warren Craghead has a new BLOG called Drawer. Visit often!

Trawick Prize

This coming Friday is the deadline for artists to submit slides to the Trawick Prize. This is the third annual prize competition that awards $14,000 in prize monies to four selected artists.

Deadline for slide submission is Friday, April 8, 2005 and up to fifteen artists will be invited to display their work from September 6, 2005 – September 30, 2005 in downtown Bethesda at Creative Partners Gallery.

The competition will be juried by Olga Viso, the Deputy Director at the Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Andrea Pollan, an independent curator, fine arts appraiser and art consultant and Dr. Thom Collins, Executive Director of the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore, MD.

The Trawick Prize was established by the generosity of local small business owner Carol Trawick. Ms. Trawick has served as a community activist for more than 20 years in downtown Bethesda. She is the Chair of the Bethesda Urban Partnership, Inc. and Chair of the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District.

The Trawick Prize is separate and different from the Bethesda Painting Awards (also sponsored through the generosity of Ms. Trawick; the deadline for the Bethesda Painting Awards has already passed). But Ms. Trawick now ponies up $20,000 of her own money to award to area artists (the competition is open to DC, MD and VA artists); this is especially commendable because she's a small business owner who has stepped forward and put her money where her mouth is (in her community), while other area business giants have ignored repeated requests to help add to the prize monies. By the way, we contribute $1,000 for a Young Artist's Award.

Wouldn't it be nice if our area's business giants like... Giant Supermarkets, or AOL or Lockheed Martin each threw in a measly (to them) $20,000 to this pot of money so generously started by a small local business?

That would mean a local art prize of $80,000! That would certainly change an artist's day, presence and stature, uh?

Forward this link to major area business giants and maybe we can shame them into participating in what Ms. Trawick has seeded.

The application for the prize is online here.