Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award 2024
By (Author) Tanya Bentley
Interviewee Richard McClure
National Portrait Gallery Publications
National Portrait Gallery Publications
15th October 2025
11th July 2024
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
Paintings and painting
Exhibition catalogues and specific collections
757
Paperback
80
Width 210mm, Height 260mm
460g
The Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award is one of Britain's most prestigious art prizes, and is the leading showcase for artists throughout the world specialising in portraiture. Barbara Walker, Tom Shakespeare and Russell Tovey are among this years judging panel.
The prestigious competition showcases the very best in contemporary portrait painting and is open to everyone aged eighteen and over. Since its inception over 40 years ago, the competition has attracted over 40,000 entries from more than 100 countries and over 6 million people have seen the exhibition.
Alongside stunning artwork reproductions, the catalogue includes extended interviews with all prize-winning artists by journalist Richard McClure, and descriptive captions for all exhibited works by National Portrait Gallery curator Tanya Bentley, providing fascinating insight into the people and techniques behind the portraits.
Tanya Bentley is Curator, Contemporary, at the National Portrait Gallery, London. She has contributed to recent publications including Icons & Identities (2020), Tacita Dean: Landscape, Portrait, Still Life (2018) and Gillian Wearing and Claude Cahun: Behind the mask, another mask (2017).
Richard McClure is a freelance journalist.