Stuart Pearson Wright (born 1975) is an English portrait artist, winner of the BP Portrait Award.
Stuart Pearson Wright was born in 1975, and went to school in Eastbourne, Sussex [1] and graduated from Slade School of Fine Art, [2] University College of London (1995–1999), receiving a B.A. in Fine Art.[ citation needed ]
When Wright was 25 the National Portrait Gallery acquired his painting of the actor John Hurt. [1] The NPG also holds a pencil drawing of actress Parminder Nagra created by him in 2004. [3]
An exhibition of his work entitled Halfboy was on show at The Heong Gallery of Downing College, Cambridge from 2 November 2018 to 6 February 2019. [4]
Wright won the BP Travel Prize in 1998. [5]
In 2001 he won the BP Portrait Award with his painting of six presidents of the National Academy. It was described as "astounding", showing the men surrounding a dead chicken. [5] As part of his prize he was commissioned to paint author J K Rowling, and that painting is part of the National Collection.
Wright won the Garrick/Milne Prize [2] in 2005.
Pearson-Wright was conceived by artificial insemination, and does not know his father. [1]
He is married and has a son. [6]
Frank Helmut Auerbach is a German-British painter. Born in Germany, he has been a naturalised British subject since 1947. He is considered one of the leading names in the School of London, with fellow artists Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.
Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota is a British art historian and curator.
The BP Portrait Award was an annual portraiture competition held at the National Portrait Gallery in London, England. It is the successor to the John Player Portrait Award. It is the most important portrait prize in the world, and is reputedly one of the most prestigious competitions in contemporary art. Starting in 2024, the National Portrait Gallery’s portrait competition resumed under the new sponsorship of international law firm Herbert Smith Freehills.
Evert Ploeg is one of Australia's most highly regarded portrait painters, who has won a range of painting prizes, such as the 1999 and 2007 Archibald Prize and was awarded the highly coveted 'Signature Status' of The Portrait Society of America.
Euan Macleod is a New Zealand-born artist. Macleod was born in Christchurch, New Zealand and moved to Sydney, Australia in 1981, where he lives and works. He received a Certificate in Graphic Design from Christchurch Technical College in 1975 and a Diploma in Fine Arts (Painting) from the University of Canterbury in 1979. As well as pursuing his art he also teaches painting at the National Art School in Sydney.
Parminder Kaur Nagra is an English actress. She is known for portraying Jess Bhamra in the film Bend It Like Beckham (2002) and Dr. Neela Rasgotra in the NBC medical drama ER (2003–2009). Her other television roles include Meera Malik in the first season of the NBC crime drama The Blacklist (2013–2014) and a recurring role in the ABC/Marvel series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2016–2017) as Ellen Nadeer for season four. More recently, Nagra has starred as the titular character of the ITV series DI Ray (2022).
John Trevor Hayes was a British art historian and museum director. He was an authority on the paintings of Thomas Gainsborough.
Sara Shamma is a UK-based Syrian artist whose paintings are figurative in style. The importance of storytelling and narrative is paramount in her work. Shamma has a long-standing interest in the psychology associated with the suffering of individuals and has made work on the subject of war, modern slavery and human trafficking. Her works can be divided into series that reflect prolonged periods of research.
Neil Shawcross, RHA, HRUA is an artist born in Kearsley, Lancashire, England, and resident in Northern Ireland since 1962. Primarily a portrait painter, his subjects have included Nobel prize winning poet Seamus Heaney, novelist Francis Stuart, former Lord Mayor of Belfast David Cook, footballer Derek Dougan and fellow artists Colin Middleton and Terry Frost. He also paints the figure and still life, taking a self-consciously childlike approach to composition and colour. His work also includes printmaking, and he has designed stained glass for the Ulster Museum and St. Colman's Church, Lambeg, County Antrim. He lives in Hillsborough, County Down.
The Garrick/Milne Prize was a biennial art prize which served to revive the art of theatrical painting and portraiture. The prize was set up by the Garrick Club in memory of A. A. Milne, a past member.
Alessandro Raho is a British artist. His work has been shown at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Ian Cumberland is an Irish visual artist. He was born in Banbridge, Co. Down, 1983. His work focuses on portraits with his paintings typically using oils as the primary media. He studied fine art at the University of Ulster. He has won several prizes, the most significant of which was the Davy Portrait Award in 2010. In 2019 and 2020 Cumberland deals in his work with increased commercialization, technological development and its effects on the individual. In doing so, he creates scenes that seem like a private snapshot and transport the viewer into a voyeuristic experience. He develops these by integrating his paintings into an installation consisting of audio and video works, neon light, sculptures and other plastic materials. Through this kind of deconstruction of his created sceneries he achieves a visual construction that alienates the human being within his culture, the influence of the mass media and data surveillance.
Carl Randall is a British figurative painter, whose work is based on images of modern Japan and London.
Aleah Chapin is an American painter whose direct portrayals of the human form have expanded the conversation around western culture’s representations of the body in art. Described by Eric Fischl as “the best and most disturbing painter of flesh alive today,” Chapin’s work has explored aging, gender and beauty, influenced in part by the community within which she was raised on an island in the Pacific Northwest. More recently, Chapin's work has taken a radically inward shift, expanding her visual language in order to better express the turbulent times we are living in. Consistent throughout her career, Chapin’s work asks the question: What does it mean to exist within a body today?
Melissa Scott-Miller is an English artist.
Darvish Fakhr is an Iranian American artist born in Newfoundland. He is an artist in the field of Iranian portrait paintings.
Paul Benney is a British artist who rose to international prominence as a contemporary artist whilst living and working in New York in the 1980s and 1990s in the UK as an portraitist.
Jack Hooper was an American painter, muralist, sculptor, printmaker and art educator. Hooper was a major figure on the Southern California art scene, belonging to that generation of Los Angeles painters who matured during the late 1950s and the 1960s, painters such as John Altoon, Sam Amato, Robert Irwin, Lee Mullican, William Brice and Billy Al Bengston. He was an innovator in the use of new materials, most importantly plastic in art. He is known for abstract expressionist, mural and figurative painting. Hooper has exhibited in art museums and galleries nationally and internationally including solo shows in Europe, Mexico and the United States. Modeling renown UCLA art professor and figurative artist, Jan Stussy, the last 20 years of his life were spent in rural Mexico, where he drew and painted every single day until his death.
Henry Ward is a British artist, who in 2010 was selected to exhibit his entry of The 'Finger-Assisted' Nephrectomy of Professor Nadey Hakim at the ‘BP Portrait Award’ at the National Portrait Gallery, London, and in 2016 was chosen to paint a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II to mark her 60-year tenure as the longest-serving patron of the British Red Cross.
Edward Sutcliffe is a British painter based in London. He is known for still-life and portraiture, and he has painted prominent figures such as Neil Kinnock and Glenda Jackson.