The Portrait Society of America recently hosted a quarter-century celebration of The Art of the Portrait, a yearly gathering of artists from all around the world who come together to share ideas and inspirations, and to exchange techniques of fine art portraiture and figurative work. The highlight of the four-day event is an exhibition of 20 finalists’ works that were part of the The International,a premier competition of drawing, painting, and sculpture focused on the figure. These finalists were selected from 3,075 entries representing 48 states and 57 countries. The selected finalists traveled to Washington, D.C., with their original work for final judging. Many traveled far to see their work on display, from across the United States and also from Australia, the United Kingdom, China and India.Paul Newton, Self-Portrait in Lockdown, oil on linen, 34 x 33½” Opening the conference this year was Burton Silverman, widely known as one of America’s most accomplished and important realist painters. He encouraged attendees to think about the content of their artworks as they immersed themselves in the “how-to” of painting. He said, “When I was a youngster, I started out wanting to make drawings and inescapably they were always of people. It was a curious phenomenon, I wasn’t interested in still life, landscapes or flowers, and it’s been an interesting kind of preoccupation because in the faces of people, I found stories. Stories about their lives or stories about who they were that I discovered by accident, or even stories that were about to happen. The range of possibilities has stayed with me to this day, and I realize the bulk of my work has been portraits.  I’ve been painting portraits of people my whole career. I share this with you because all of that has evolved into a kind of thinking in relation to painting portraits. Just go to the museums, and you’ll see the primacy of portrait painting in all the collections, and you realize they have all been part of fine art and our collective history.”

Shane Wolf, Distanciation, charcoal, sanguine, chalk and pierre noire, 55 1/5 x 39 3/5”

Storytelling was the primary theme portrayed in the winning works of this year’s competition. For instance, Draper Grand Prize winner Paul Newton’s work was a self-portrait painted during the pandemic in Australia. Newton says, “I painted this self-portrait over the many months of lockdown in Sydney, at a time when the government restricted travel to a three-mile radius from our homes, one of the most extreme and protracted lockdowns in the world. My pensive, subdued expression in the picture reflected my mood during this very difficult time of disconnection from friends and family. I found it cathartic to depict my feelings of social isolation on canvas in the form of a self-portrait during this dark time. In painting, I found my voice. One of the privileges of working in this field is the opportunity I have had to meet and paint some truly extraordinary people. I never tire of painting the human face; with its infinite variability, it remains always an exciting challenge to capture on canvas something of the essence, of the spirit, of the sitter.” One of the jurors for the competition commented, “Paul Newton’s self-portrait checks off all the boxes of what makes a superior work of art. Richly painted, beautifully composed, and simply stated, Newton serves up a masterful piece that is both classical in technique, yet contemporary in feeling.”

Jie Liu, Hsin P. Soh, stone sculpture, 11 x 10 x 26” 

Ruth Fitton’s career started with a self-portrait she drew when she was 15 years old. She says, “It was a little test for myself to see whether I was actually any good at art. Of course, the result was appalling. So, I started to practice! I continued drawing portraits all the way through high school and university and part-way through my final year at university, I decided portraiture was what I really wanted to purse. Fitton’s portrait painting, she wanted to create a portrait that defied historical portrayals of women, in which they are usually passive and almost always young. Ruth says, “It’s a subversive nod to all those historical paintings which depict the abduction of helpless young women, faces turned up in horror. In my portrait, Berni, a strong older woman, takes her life (and her age) into her own hands with an act of courage.”

Shane Wolf’s monumental drawing was awarded first place in drawing, and the narrative he portrayed is told perfectly through the words of his model: “I have the body of an ogre, but on the inside I’m Little Red Riding Hood.” With these words, Pierre, a French actor, took a bold new step in his life and career to pose nude for an artist, de-robed and stepped on the model stand. Wolf comments, “I often hear the casual assumption that one has to be deemed ‘pretty’ or ‘fit’ to pose nude. Without exception, I respond that we all possess some quality, some characteristic, some essence that is worth studying and capturing artistically. As soon as Pierre stood before me, I was struck by his prowess, his undeniable presence, and his mixed regard of confidence and disdain, as if he already knew what might be said about him becoming the muse of an artist.”

Jie Liu from China was awarded first place sculpture for his stunning portrait of physicist Hsin P. Soh. Liu was inspired to create this work after seeing photographs of the scientist and learning of his great deeds, and achievements. In his sculpture, you can visualize the story of his accomplishment through the bold pose. Liu has had a deep passion for art since he was a child and he has devoted his whole life to creating it. 

Frances Bell, A Portrait Painter’s Painter, oil on canvas, 25½ x 29½” 

Frances Bell, who traveled from the United Kingdom, was awarded second place for her portrait entitled A Portrait Painter’s Painter. This is a portrait of Andrew Festing, one of the most successful portrait artists of the last half of the 20th century. Bell shared the story of her time with Festing: “Many of the artists I’d like to talk with are long dead, so this portrait celebrates a rare exception for a contemporary painter—a moment to coexist in a studio over warm conversation with a wonderful artist. Andrew’s anecdotes and life story trace a vivid thread back to a previous artistic time, and I feel privileged to have had the chance to commit this interaction to canvas, and to have commissioned a short film of the interview and painting process for posterity as well. He has a fantastic head to paint; such a strong presence, and he gives his views on painting frankly and is generous with his advice.”

Ruth Fitton, The Abduction of Time, oil on linen, 36 x 48”

The weekend’s activities were a grand celebration of 25 years of inspiring and connecting artists from all over the globe. To date, the Portrait Society has awarded over 1.3 million dollars in prizes and awards to our top finalists, a tremendous amount by any standard, but it’s the stories—being visually communicated—that have touched us and what we remember. Burton Silverman concluded his presentation with this parting idea: “Portraits are storytellers. They have been so historically for over 10 centuries, in fact the whole history of art has been about the way visual material can translate into a kind of linguistic communication. My interest is in how to put together all the stimuli from the conference, the demos, the critiques, the various views expressed about different forms of art, and the how-tos with what you paint—that’s the story and it is a marriage I think that creates the soul of our paintings.” —

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