Face It. Portraiture Is Back

Wednesday, June 1, marks the first day that artists all over the country can enter the National Portrait Gallery's Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2006. As you may have noticed, I've placed a link to contest in the right hand navigation so that you can find the entry form easily (the link will be there for the next two months so you have no excuse not to participate!). I eagerly encourage all artists to enter this contest. I understand that they are really looking for innovative portraiture, even though photography will not be considered in this edition of the contest. But for $25,000 it's worth a shot, right? Not to mention the chance at incredible press and getting your work in front of top art professionals. The competition's web site states:

Since the beginning of time, artists have expressed their thoughts, feelings, hopes, and ideals, by depicting something we all possess—the human form. Cavemen did it. Rembrandt did it. Andy Warhol did it. Now the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery is inviting artists all over America to do it.

The Gallery is welcoming portraiture into the 21st century with its first-ever Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2006. Named for Virginia Outwin Boochever, a former NPG volunteer whose generous gift has endowed this program, the inaugural competition and resulting exhibition will focus on innovation and excellence in portrait painting and sculpture.

Painting and sculpture are two of the most traditional media employed by artists. During the last few decades of the 20th century, artists such as Lucien Freud, Duane Hanson, Alice Neel, Chuck Close, Philip Pearlstein, and Alex Katz—all made innovative and compelling portraits—were few in number.

Recently, however, many of today’s emerging artists are using portraiture or self-portraiture to explore complex issues of identity. At the same time, those artists are also testing the boundaries of the genre of figurative art. Others are finding success through a renewed attention to classical training in representational art. Artists who regularly create portraits on commission are also experiencing a higher level of interest in their work. In short, portraiture has become the rising star of contemporary art.

So now you know about the competition... go ahead and enter. I haven't done much portraiture but this entices me to give it a shot!

Comments

[James W. Bailey]

Dear J.T.,

For a shot a $25K I'll dip my feet in paint and try to wip out a portrait of W. Mark Felt - if I'm lucky my painting will at least resemble Benedict Arnold.

Ooops! Sorry for the political comment. I'm still steaming after all these years over the FBI's B.S. COINTELPRO. I know far too many innocent people that got sucked up into that government sanctioned criminal enterprise.

"Deep Throat" had to be, of all people, Felt. That sad fact doesn't deserve a single portrait, it deserves a touring exhibition that travels to every high school in America so that the millions of kids born after Watergate understand that the scum that brought Nixon down managed one of the greatest civil rights violating criminal organizations ever conceived in this country.

Don't they say that it takes a good ten years to master a talent like painting? If I had suspected Felt, I would have started practicing my painting with intensity back in 1995 instead of wasting so much time laughing my ass off at the Saturday Night Live comedy skit that was the first term Clinton administration.

James

[J.T. Kirkland]

James,

Let's try to keep the comments to being (mostly) about art... this one is a bit heavy on politics with no true connection to the portrait contest.

Thanks!

[wwc]

Sorry J.T., gotta chime in...

James when scum takes down bigger scum, we all win, right? And wasn't Nixon much bigger and more powerful scum?

It's a typical contemporary device of the Right to impugn people's motives at the first hint of criticism instead of actually dealing with the charges - Amnesty International "hates America", anti-Iraq war protesters are "objectively pro-Saddam", Botero is some kind of propagandist for daring to paint images of the Abu Ghraib atrocities.

Benedict Arnold? Felt may not be a white-hat squeaky clean good guy, but you have to be a pretty brainwashed Nixon-lover to compare him to an actual traitor.

[wwc]

One more thing - you're right about the FBI having a very bad record - I don't want to minimize that. Re-reading your comment makes me wat to say that - Felt is not a good guy by any stretch - but he did do something good, albiet for the wrong reasons.

[wwc]

To go back on topic - I'd hope they do something online to show all (or most) of the entries - or at least list who was depicted. I'm sure there will be lots of Washingtons, Lincolns etc, but there will probably also be lots of weird subjects too. and lots of Grandmas.

[J.T. Kirkland]

Alright...

If anyone wants to discuss Bailey's political comments you can find his email address on his Web site. Same for WWC.

I don't mind tangents but I can see this one taking on a whole new life. Please be considerate...

[James W. Bailey]

Dear Warren,

I am no lover of Nixon, Reagan, Clinton or Bush. I have said repeatedly that since my early days of life in Mississippi that I am and have long been an anarchist.

The connection to art is the fact that I can provide a long list of artists that were screwed over and wrongly convicted and never pardoned by either a conservative or liberal President by false testimony provided by assholes like Felt and his minions at the FBI during the heyday of COINTELPRO.

Did Nixon deserve to go down? Yes. And there are plenty of portraits of him that already exist.

But, if I were a painter, I would most definitely submit a portrait of Felt painted on felt with the blood of hundreds of innocent real and true liberal activist victims who were libeled, falsely charged, convicted and imprisoned as a result of the FBI's subverting the Constutition and its Bill of Rights through COINTELPRO.

I would start with the blood of one of COINTELPRO's most famous victims, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I respect your opinion, and I certainly respect J.T.'s site. It is probably better to take this conversation to another venue. I don't think that I can legitimately sustain any further art focused dialogue on this thread beyond these comments.

James

[mark]

Thanks for the tip and the many other updates you've given! You blog-maven you.

[J.T. Kirkland]

Blog-maven, huh? That's a new one for me!!

Should you decide to enter, GOOD LUCK!

[ami lahoff]

Hey, thanks for the link! I am so pleased that portraiture is getting its come-uppance...

I've linked you on my website. I hope you don't mind. I've been a silent reader for a while now. Finding your site an enjoyable read... I hope it's not too forward of me to link you, but I think it's useful to a lot of my friends...

[J.T. Kirkland]

No problem at all about the link. And I'm glad you enjoy the site. Let us know how the Portrait contest goes!

Good luck!