Showing at London’s National Portrait Gallery, this year’s Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award celebrates realism and many cases of astonishing hyper-realism, with the winner being the main exception. 1,314 entries came from 61 countries with 46 shortlisted portraits. I’ll focus on six.
One of the most immediately powerful portraits is Tim Benson’s Cliff, Outreach Worker (2024), awarded second prize. Cliff’s face is so present, filling the canvas and wrought in thick strokes of paint. His eyes stare out to up left and, in parallel with the cross-beam, creating an internal frame. The line contrasts with the mouth that goes down from right to bottom left, parallel to Cliff’s downward-sloping right shoulder. The head is firmly vertical, perhaps a statement of solidity and Cliff’s upright nature. He helps young people start and grow their businesses and is a local pillar of the community.
I also immediately liked Yvadney Davis’ Inset Day. Davisherself is dressed up in a pink and red trouser suit, but sits heavily on the sofa, hands almost limp. She looks weary and weighed down by responsibility, while her daughter, in a red triangle dress, keeps herself amused by walking on the cushions of the sofa. They are together, but in different headspaces. Yvadney is not quite looking at us, lost in thought, perhaps trying to motivate herself to find the same energy as her daughter and start the day.
Shinji Ihara’s Light and Shadow is an intriguingcomposition with the artist at the bottom of the stairwell, standing with a bunch of bags and a little oval mirror reflecting his partner at the top of the stairs – either reading a newspaper while waiting for Shinji Ihara’s return, or taking a photo of the moment, catching his own looming shadow much larger than the perspective-diminished Shinji Ihara, and infinitely larger than his own reflection in the mirror.
Below is an extract zooming in on part of the painting. See the impressive level of detail. The work echoes van Eyck’s iconic The Arnolfini Portrait (1434), also at the National Gallery. Art communicating with art over the centuries
Pippa Hale-Lynch’s The Echo is an intriguing blurring, moving self-portrait with the elongated, multiple irises and what could be a camera flash caught as a juddering white line running from pupil to pupil. Many of her watch us looking at her. But the eyes are out of focus, or rather, don’t quite look at us. She is in her own world, lost in reflection. It is also a reminder that many moments make a person, and portraits try to capture, in a moment, a flow of history, a string of evolving identities. Here we feel the multiple thoughts fighting for primacy in the sitter’s mind, but she is unanchored, watching the stream of ideas or memories or dreams race across the inner screen of her mind.
The sitter in Martyn Harris’ Memories, Gillian, hands clasped in front of her, stares to the bottom left, miles away, lost in her memories. It is a delicate, respectful portrait that won third prize. The skin feels so real, realist without being hyper realist, as does the grey hair. Her eyes are slightly red, as is her nose. This, her slightly pulled back bottom lip, and the clasped hands suggest Gillian was reflecting on a past loss, reminding us of the challenges of surviving into old age. So much lived, yet so much long gone.
The first prize was awarded to Moira Cameron’s A Life Lived with its refreshingly bold figure, the giant blue armchair and green dress, the silhouette legs folded from the bottom centre to the bottom right corner. The body forms an arc, counterbalanced by the arms that echo the curve of the back of the chair, with the armrests and right leg of the sofa anchoring the portrait. The drops and dashes of paint give a sense of time, the little rounds on the sofa and dress not only give energy to the painting, but also hint at moments of her life. Moira’s expression here is contemplative, and she looks, like Gillian above, out of the page to the bottom left. I like the tension between the refreshingly free painting style and the sense of brooding.
There are so many more paintings worth writing about, from the hyper-realists (a dozen exhibiting) who always impress technically (how to they do that!?). to more symbolic painters (here Xu Yang) and interesting takes, like Nelson Hernandez’s back of the Ukrainian Girl, one of the few paintings with a geopolitical edge, another being Call me Albie, by Ashley Ogilvy. For these and the other forty portraits not covered here, go to the Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award 2025, open until 12 October 2025. See also Jenny Saville’s astonishing The Anatomy of Painting. The Portrait Award, as per tradition, is free-entry, while the Jenny Saville exhibition, on until 7 September, has an entry fee, but it is definitely worth it. Both are. As indeed are so many other portraits at the National Portrait Gallery.
