The Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Competition

The 2013 Self-Portrait Exhibition will be at Kings Place 21 June – 16 August 2013.

The 2011 £10,000 Prize Winner was Celia Paul

Celia Paul was born in 1959 in Trivandrum, India and attended the Slade School of Art, London from 1976 – 1981. She has exhibited widely and has works in many public collections including the British Museum, the V & A and the Metropolitan Museum, New York. Lucian Freud was of great influence to Paul during her student years and she appeared in many of his paintings. In the last 20 years Celia Paul has emerged as one of the most remarkable and original painters working in the figurative tradition. Her paintings and drawings are intimate portraits of people she knows well and invariably depict a single model or group. "My work is about people and their emotions", she has said. Her dark toned paintings are reminiscent of old masters and share an interest in the effect of light. Her paintings often have a monumental quality, but she is equally adept at capturing emotion in a small soft-ground etching.

Out of 508 entries, 173 works were selected for the exhibition at Kings Place Gallery. The judges, Rachel Borchard, Sister Wendy Beckett, Robert Travers, William Feaver and William Varley shortlisted works by Maggi Hambling, Marcelle Hanselaar, Celia Paul, Cherry Pickles, Fred Crayk and Mary Mabbutt, but unanimously awarded the £10,000 prize to Celia Paul.

Celia Paul's self-portrait, as well as other works in the exhibition by Donald Sutherland, Laura Gressani, Fred Crayk, Lindsay Simons, Diana Jean Cumming, Daniel Shadbolt, Anthony Eyton, Leslie Marr, Shanti Panchal, Eleanor Bowen, Maggi Hambling, Marcelle Hanselaar, Hannah Webb, Elizabeth Shields, Helena McGrath, Brita Granstrom, Susan Light, Mary Mabbutt, Anthony Eyton, Greg Tricker, Georgina Sleap, Peter Holt, David Caldwell, Thomas Newbolt, and Sally Muir were purchased to begin a new 21st century self-portrait collection to be added to the existing collection of 101 self-portraits acquired by Ruth Borchard in the post-war years.

CLICK HERE TO SEE WORKS SELECTED FOR THE NEW 21ST CENTURY SELF-PORTRAIT COLLECTION

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT ABOUT THE 2013 COMPETITION

CLICK HERE TO SEE A VIDEO OF THE COMPETITION JUDGES