Today the National Portrait Gallery has announced the three shortlisted artists for the 43rd edition of its prestigious annual Portrait Award. This year’s shortlist was selected from over 1,314 entries from around the world, with 46 portraits in total chosen for final display in a free exhibition open from 10th July to 12th October 2025.
Entries were submitted anonymously and judged by a panel comprised of art historian and academic at The Courtauld Institute of Art, Professor Dorothy Price FBA; visual artist, Maggi Hambling; opera singer, artist and writer, Peter Brathwaite; Joint-Head of Curatorial and Senior Curator of 20th Century Collections at the National Portrait Gallery, Rosie Broadley; and the Gallery’s Director of Programmes and Partnerships, Rosie Wilson. The three shortlisted portraits are:
Cliff, Outreach Worker (2024) by Tim Benson
A Life Lived (2024) by Moira Cameron
Memories (2024) by Martyn Harris
I’d like to congratulate all the artists shortlisted for this year’s Portrait Award. The Skill, artistry and quality of the submissions is inspiring, and I very much look forward to seeing these works hanging in the Gallery soon, free to access for all. I hope visitors enjoy this eclectic mix of contemporary portraits and the stories and sitters that inspired them.
Amy Emmerson Martin Contemporary Curator, National Portrait Gallery
This is the second year that the Award has been supported by Herbert Smith Freehills. Herbert Smith Freehills and Kramer Levin have voted to combine, forming a fully integrated global law firm: Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer. The combination, approved in April 2025, is expected to be completed on 1 June 2025. The prestigious Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award is being renamed the Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award.
The Portrait Award has earned a reputation as one of the most important platforms for portrait painters. The highly competitive Award encourages artists over the age of 18 to focus upon, and develop, the theme of portraiture in their work. Since its inception, the competition has attracted over 40,000 entries from more than 100 countries and the exhibition has been seen by over 6 million people. With a first prize of £35,000, it is one of the largest awards for any global art competition. The second prize winner will receive £12,000 and the third prize winner will receive £10,000.
Included in the Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award is the Young Artist Award, which aims to profile talent and help support the career development of a young artist. The winning entrant, aged between 18 and 30, will be awarded a prize of £9,000.
A commission will also be awarded to an artist. A bi-annual award, all artists chosen to exhibit in 2024 and 2025’s Portrait Award exhibitions will be considered for this commission.
Shortlisted Artists
Tim Benson for Cliff, Outreach Worker (Oil on canvas 1520mm x 1220mm)
Tim Benson is a British oil painter who trained at Middlesex University, Glasgow School of Art, and Byam Shaw School of Art. He began as a landscape painter before switching his focus to figurative work. Across his award-winning career, Benson has won international commissions and partaken in a string of group and solo exhibitions. He is also the President of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters in London. Benson’s work has previously been selected for the Portrait Award in 2012, 2020 and 2024.
For Benson, portrait painting is about storytelling and chronicling experiences. This large scale portrait of London outreach worker Clifford Dobbs was painted as part of a series of paintings depicting people with facial differences. Cliff’s jaw was broken when he was a child and was never re-set, resulting in his facial difference. Painting Cliff gave the artist the opportunity to challenge historical notions of beauty in portraiture whilst also advocating for the destigmatisation of facial difference.
Due to the sitter’s busy schedule, the portrait was made from sketches and photographs taken in Cliff’s office, as opposed to Benson’s usual process of a single four-hour sitting. Benson works quickly and uses a limited palette, painting straight to canvas with a wide, flat brush that prevents excessive detailing and allows him to ‘sculpt’ the facets of the sitter’s head in thick oils with as few brush strokes as necessary.
Moira Cameron for A Life Lived (Oil on canvas 220mm x 2000mm)
Moira Cameron is a British artist who trained at Ravensbourne College of Art and Chelsea College of Art. Her work has been exhibited around the world, including in London, Japan, New York and Switzerland. Born into a family of artists, her artistic calling was never in question. After decades of artistic collaboration, first with her husband, Pop artist David Spiller, then with her son, Xavier, Cameron has returned to her own practice. As part of this newfound independence, she is reimagining paintings she created as a student.
A Life Lived is an evolution of a self-portrait Cameron painted 40 years ago. This large-scale work of the artist reclining in a comfortable armchair shows an older woman who has lived, observed and felt deeply. Her posture conveys quiet fatigue, with shoulders slightly slumped and head tilted in reflection. The lines on her face and the subtle shadows tell a story of time passing and of a life fully experienced. Rather than capturing a single moment in time, the portrait holds a lifetime within it.
Cameron began the new portrait by sketching the image with pastels and spray paints before applying thick layers of oil paint – brushed, palette-knifed, or smeared by hand – followed by more fluid oils. Some areas are scraped, washed away, and repainted, while others are intentionally left bare.
Martyn Harris for Memories (Oil on board 400mm x 400mm)
Martyn Harris is a British portrait and landscape artist who trained as a mentee under W. R. Jennings. He became a full-time artist eight years ago, following a career that included jobs as a mechanical engineer and draughtsman. The meticulous and painstaking nature of his previous occupations can be detected in measured, closely observed portraits. Harris’s works have been selected several times for the Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ annual exhibition.
Harris would often see Gillian from his studio when she visited the Art Yard Gallery. Striking up a friendship, and moved by her vulnerability and introspective expression, he asked if she would sit for a portrait that would reflect on the passage of time and the fragility of ageing. Captured over three sittings, the portrait depicts Gillian in a moment of reflection. Her expression is pensive, with hands clasped in quiet contemplation and eyes downcast, thoughtful and somewhat weary, suggesting a life of many experiences.
Harris makes use of light, shadow and contrast to strengthen the emotional qualities of the piece. The light muted background heightens the sense of isolation, placing Gillian in a world of her own; while the contrast between her pale skin and dark clothes highlights the delicate lines and colours of her face and hands. The work explores themes of loneliness, reflection and human vulnerability, and invites viewers to consider Gillian’s life and story.
Every entry submitted for this year’s prize captures raw emotion. The artists may have a different story to tell through their canvasses, yet their individual perspectives share a common trait – namely that the power of the paintbrush depicts diversity of thought and hopefully goes some way to ensure we can all appreciate another’s view of the world.
Justin D’Agostino MH Global CEO, Herbert Smith Freehills
Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award 2025 10th July 2025 – 12th October 2025,
National Portrait Gallery
Supported by Herbert Smith Freehills, which from 1 June 2025 will be known as Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer
The prize-winning portraits and those selected for inclusion in the exhibition were chosen from 1,314 submissions entered by artists from 60 countries. A total of 46 portraits have been selected for display in the Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award 2025 exhibition.
The first prize winner of the competition will receive £35,000. The second prize winner will receive £12,000 and the third prize winner will receive £10,000. The Young Artist Award of £9,000 will be awarded to a selected entrant aged between 18 and 30, as of 1 January 2024.
National Portrait Gallery
Founded in 1856, the National Portrait Gallery tells the story of Britain through portraits, using art to bring history to life and explore living today. From global icons, to unsung heroes, our Collection is filled with the stories that have shaped, and continue to shape a nation. We celebrate the power of portraiture and offer encounters with some of the world’s greatest and most exciting new artists, promoting engagement with portraiture in all media to a wide- ranging public by conserving, growing and sharing the world’s largest collection of portraits. www.npg.org.uk
Herbert Smith Freehills
Operating from 24 offices across Asia Pacific, EMEA and North America, Herbert Smith Freehills provides premium legal advice on dispute resolution, projects and transactions to the world’s most important organisations. The firm advises across industry sectors and strategically important areas including private capital, ESG, energy transition and technology and digitalisation. @hsfearlycareersuk
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