NZ Portrait Gallery Judge Announced

NZ Portrait Gallery Judge Announced

An international judge has chosen 59 finalists from a record 366 entries for this year’s Adam Portraiture Award, New Zealand’s premier portrait prize which is held every two years.

Danish art expert Mette Skougaard will arrive this week to make her final selection of the $20,000 winner who will be announced at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery, on Wellington’s waterfront, on February 24.

All the finalists’ works will be go on show at what is consistently the gallery’s most popular exhibition from February 25 to May 29.

Gallery director Gaelen Macdonald said entries from all over the country include portraits of famous New Zealanders such as artist Dick Frizzell, Tuhoe activist Tame Iti and former cricketer Chris Cairns, along with self-portraits and works depicting the painters’ family members and friends.

Judge Mette Skougaard, director of Denmark’s Museum of National History and National Portrait Gallery, said she had been impressed by the high technical standard and variety of the works. ”It has been very difficult to choose among these many outstanding portraits.”

The runner-up receives $2,500 and visitors to the exhibition will be able to vote their favourite for the People’s Choice Award, also worth $2,500 which will be announced when it closes at the end of May.

The Adam Foundation of Wellington philanthropists Denis and Verna Adam have sponsored the award, which recognises that portraiture is not only an important art form but provides a pictorial record for future generations, since 2002.

ENDS

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