The National Portrait Gallery has revealed the four photographers shortlisted for the Winston Taylor Photo Portrait Prize 2026, selected from almost 4,000 entries by 1,338 photographers from around the world.
James Clifford Kent, Marcie Docherty, Katie Hitchcock-Smith and Max Pattenden are in contention for this year’s prize, with the winner set to be announced on 3rd November 2026. Their work will subsequently go on display as part of an exhibition bringing together 56 works by 56 photographers at the National Portrait Gallery.
James Clifford Kent is shortlisted for Neisser, Pinar del Río, Cuba, a portrait of 16-year-old aspiring pentathlete Neisser photographed during the artist’s return to Cuba in 2025. The self-taught South London photographer first began documenting the country while teaching at the University of Havana in his twenties, developing an ongoing relationship with Cuba that has now lasted two decades.
Marcie Docherty is nominated for PE, from her ongoing series In Pursuit of Muscle, which explores how masculinity is constructed and performed. Four men dressed as an American football team stand outside an ordinary suburban building, but details including wrestling shorts and polished leather shoes disrupt the familiar imagery of American sporting culture.
Explorer, writer and photographer Katie Hitchcock-Smith makes the shortlist with Moroccan (Amazigh) Cowboys, created during an artist residency near Erfoud in eastern Morocco. The carefully constructed portrait draws on the visual mythology of the American Western — from John Wayne and Clint Eastwood to the Marlboro Man — while combining it with Amazigh clothing, landscape and culture.
At 24, Max Pattenden is the youngest of the four shortlisted photographers. His portrait Havannah, Lee Moor depicts a ten-year-old girl he met while photographing a Halloween gathering in a Devon village built around China clay pits. Pattenden’s wider series investigates the relationship between time, identity and landscape.
This year’s judging panel comprises broadcaster and author Emma Dabiri, photographer Nadine Ijewere, photographer and documentary filmmaker Mary McCartney, and the National Portrait Gallery’s Senior Curator of Photographs Brandei Estes.
Estes said:
“Congratulations to the shortlisted artists for this year’s Winston Taylor Photo Portrait Prize. My fellow judges and I were wholly impressed by the talent and creativity of the submissions and, as always, we’re thankful for the sitters and stories from around the world that we are so privileged to welcome to the Gallery as part of the Photo Portrait Prize exhibition.”
The winner will receive £15,000, with £3,000 awarded for second place and £2,000 for third. One shortlisted photographer will also receive an £8,000 commission to create a new work for the National Portrait Gallery’s collection.
The Winston Taylor Photo Portrait Prize 2026 exhibition opens at the National Portrait Gallery, London, on 5th November 2026, bringing together the shortlisted portraits with work selected from this year’s international submissions.
Winston Taylor Photo Portrait Prize 2026, 5th November 2026 – 17th January 2027,
National Portrait Gallery
