Traditional portraiture celebrates the human experience and the artists’ abilities to capture the nuances of human nature, from fleeting moments to momentous occasions. The Portrait Society of America (PSA) helps preserve that centuries-old portrait tradition, and it recently announced the winners of its 28th Annual International Portrait Competition (IPC).
More than 2,200 entries from 50 U.S. states and 61 countries competed for the $175,000 prize fund, including the $50,000 William Rorick Grand Prize. PSA chair, portraitist Michael Shane Neal, announced the award-winning drawings, paintings, and sculptures at the Grand Hyatt Atlanta in Buckhead, Georgia.
The award ceremony was part of “The Art of the Portrait,” the society’s annual conference, where some of the world’s leading portrait and figurative artists draw, paint, sculpt, and share their expertise over several days.
Celebrating Humanity
Some award winners deftly captured human nature in its minutiae. Casey Childs painted his model, Grace, mid-distraction. Oliver Sin’s charcoal portrait of Juan conveys dignity amid hardship. Both won Exceptional Merit awards. Marc Dalessio depicted his neighbor Ian, whose warm presence compelled the artist to rediscover portraiture and ultimately led to a First Honor award.
Grace DeVito won the First Place Painting award for her self-portrait “Dziedzictwo (Heritage).” DeVito’s prolonged mirror-gazing for the portrait highlighted the head shape and structure that she inherited from her Eastern European ancestry.
Many award-winning works reflect the student-teacher bond. Jeff Hein demonstrated the techniques of painting from a live model, in this case, Carol, as part of his teaching workshop; the portrait won the Second Place Painting award. Chu Tien Thang‘s mixed media rendering of his promising student, Bao Tran, won the First Place Drawing award. Anthony Adcock’s aptly titled “Beginning—Portrait of David Jamieson,” won a Second Honor award. Adcock’s work honors his former art professor and the fundamental art training he imparted that is now the foundation of all Adcock’s art. In turn, Jamieson paid homage to his former student in “Iron Man–Portrait of Anthony Adcock.” Neal said that it “honors [Adcock’s] resilience, craftsmanship, and deep sense of purpose” as an iron worker and artist. Jamieson’s work won a Third Place Painting award.
The Best of the Best
Rose Franzten’s portrait of her longtime model and friend, Chuck, titled “Last Light,” won the William Rorick Grand Prize and the People’s Choice Award. Neal said, “[‘Last Light’] contemplates the threshold between life and its last light. It honors the light that he carried even at the edge of darkness.”
In her moving acceptance speech, Franzten said the painting was a tribute to everyone who had ever posed for her—and, of course, Chuck, who has since died. “Portrait painters, sculptors: none of us can do it without those people giving us those hours of present stillness in which we can actually experience something, like possibly that light that makes this worth being here.”
She also praised the society’s conference: “I know we [portraitists] all have grown so much through what the PSA has given us. I can’t tell you how rewarding it is for all of us to share our experiences and our knowledge with every generation, and everybody who loves to put a little mud on canvas or a little clay on the armature [framework of a sculpture].”
Honoring Artistic Brilliance
In addition to the IPC awards, several special awards were presented. The society awarded Signature Status to six artists: Laura Arenson, Frances Bell, Jaq Grantford, Sherrie McGraw, Kazuya Ushioda, and Rainny Zhao, honoring these “practicing and accomplished artists who are dedicated to the educational mission and high aesthetic standards of the Portrait Society of America.”
Philadelphia’s Studio Incamminati School for Contemporary Realist Art won the society’s Excellence in Fine Art Education award, which recognizes the “contributions of museums, foundations, patrons, art schools, ateliers and artists that support the teaching and encouragement of artists seeking to work in the realist tradition.”
World-renowned portraitist Nelson Shanks (1937–2015) and his artist wife, Leona, founded the academy in 2002, with the founder of The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Marc Mostovoy. The academy teaches classical portraiture from the Italian academic and French atelier traditions, along with the practical skills required for success in contemporary art.
Gold Medal Art
Realist painter Bo Bartlett was presented with the Gold Medal, the society’s highest honor, given to artists who have “dedicated themselves to excellence in their work and a commitment to educating their fellow artists.”
Barlett’s art encompasses European and American traditions. At 18, Barlett traveled to Florence for private drawing tuition with Ben Long, a fellow American artist and student of the renowned Italian master Pietro Annigoni. Then, Nelson Shanks taught Barlett at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he learned the art traditions set by fellow Americans Thomas Eakins in the late-19th century and Andrew Wyeth a century later. The latter became Bartlett’s mentor.
Just like Wyeth, Barlett’s family and friends fill his paintings of American life, which are often set in his childhood home in Georgia or his summer retreat in Maine. Bartlett’s art can be found in world-renowned museums and galleries.
The PSA inscribed the award, stating that Barlett is “celebrated for his monumental paintings and deeply narrative vision revealing both technical mastery and emotional depth.”
Accepting his award, Bartlett addressed fellow portraitists: ”We’re all involved in that one endeavor that is the most difficult thing that there is to do—which is to try to capture the human figure and the human spirit. It is the hardest thing to do in art.”
To see all of the Portrait Society of America’s 28th International Portrait Competition winners, visit PortraitSociety.org
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