The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery announces today that Margaret Bowland of Brooklyn, N.Y., has been awarded first prize for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2009 People’s Choice Award. A cash prize of $500 will be given to the artist.
The Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition includes two different awards. The expert jury selected the 49 pieces featured in the exhibition and the seven prize winners. Visitors to the exhibition, both in the gallery and online, then cast votes for the People’s Choice Award, selecting their favorite of the exhibited works. Voting closed Jan. 18.
Bowland’s work was also recognized by the expert jury as a commended entry. Her oil-on-linen work titled "Portrait of Kenyetta and Brianna" depicts three figures in white makeup dressed in the two traditions of bride and geisha. Bowland commented on her work for the wall label in the exhibition:
"My girls became…images requesting acceptance and protection through ritual purification. The painting is a scene of victory over these rites. My bride and her doubled flower girl look out at us. True, tradition covers them in white, but who they are shines through as their eyes meet ours."
"The People’s Choice Award is an opportunity to engage our visitors—both online and in the exhibition—in a conversation with contemporary portraiture," said Brandon Fortune, acting director and curator of painting and sculpture of the museum. "By asking visitors to vote, we inquire, ‘Which of these portraits speaks to you?’"
Matthew Mitchell of Amherst, Mass., and Sonia Paulino of Los Angeles were voted for second and third place, respectively. Mitchell’s oil-on-canvas painting depicts Staff Sergeant Rick Yarosh, a burn survivor from a roadside bomb explosion in Iraq. Paulino’s photograph, "Samuel and Thalia, Echo Park," shows a man holding his dog in the park.
The Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2009 received more than 3,300 entries from emerging and mid-career portrait and figurative artists from across the United States. The next entry period will be announced in 2011.
Finalists for the 2009 competition were chosen in early May, and the winner, Dave Woody of Fort Collins, Colo., was announced at the Portrait Competition awards celebration in October. (A full list of the artists represented in the exhibition follows at the end of this release.)
Expert jurors for the competition were Wanda M. Corn, professor emerita in art history at Stanford University; Kerry James Marshall, artist; Brian O’Doherty, artist and critic; and Peter Schjeldahl, art critic for The New Yorker. Jurors from the National Portrait Gallery were Martin E. Sullivan, director; Carolyn K. Carr, deputy director and chief curator; and Fortune.
This competition is made possible by the generosity of Virginia Outwin Boochever, whose gift fosters the acquisition of innovative contemporary portraiture for the Portrait Gallery. This triennial event invites figurative artists to submit entries to be considered for prizes and display at the National Portrait Gallery. The exhibition is open to the public through Aug. 22.
The "Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2009" exhibition is accompanied by a publication illustrating each of the 49 finalists’ works, including an essay by independent scholar Trevor Fairbrother. Distributed by the University of Washington Press, it is available in the museum store for $13.95.
National Portrait Gallery
The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery tells the history of America through the individuals who have shaped its culture. Through the visual arts, performing arts and new media, the Portrait Gallery portrays poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists whose lives tell the American story.
The National Portrait Gallery is part of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture at Eighth and F streets N.W., Washington, D.C. Smithsonian Information: (202) 633-1000; (202) 633-5285 (TTY). Web site: npg.si.edu.
SI-51-2010
National Portrait Gallery
Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition Artists 2009
*Denotes artists who were selected by the expert jury for first, second and third prize, as well as commended artists.
^Denotes artists selected for the People’s Choice Award.
Mequitta Ahuja, New York City
Jason Shaw Alexander, Los Angeles
Jen Bandini, Queens, N.Y.
Margaret Bowland, Brooklyn, N.Y.*^ 1st place
Benita Carr, Atlanta
Laura Chasman, Roslindale, Mass.
Mark Cummings, Newport Beach, Calif.
Yolanda del Amo, Brooklyn, N.Y.*
Armando Dominguez, Miami
Jenny Dubnau, Jackson Heights, N.Y.
Daniel Mark Duffy, Newtown, Conn.
David Eichenberg, Toledo, Ohio
Gaela Erwin, Louisville, Ky.*
Chambliss Giobbi, New York
David Gracie, Omaha, Neb.
Leor Grady, New York
Anne Harris, Riverside, Ill.
Patricia Horing, Larchmont, N.Y.
Anna Killian, Pensacola, Fla.
Erika Larsen, Hoboken, N.J.
David Dodge Lewis, Farmville, Va.
Lisa Lindvay, Chicago
Francesco Lombardo, Marshall, N.C.
Perin Mahler, Irvine, Calif.
John Manion, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Bruce McKaig, Washington, D.C.
Pavel Melecky, Arlington, Texas
Sam Messer, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Paul Mindell, Norwalk, Conn.
Matthew Mitchell, Amherst, Mass.^ 2nd place
Samantha Mitchell, New York
Austin Parkhill, Arvada, Colo.
Sonia Paulino, Los Angeles^ 3rd place
Cliffton Peacock, Charleston, S.C.
Stanley Rayfield, Richmond, Va.* 2nd prize
Emil Robinson, Cincinnati*
Kate Sammons, Los Angeles
Philip Schirmer, Sargentville, Maine
Justin Shaw, Lincoln, Neb.
Satomi Shirai, Astoria, N.Y.
Michael A. Smith, Ottsville, Pa.
Ben Tolman, Washington, D.C.
Jim Torok, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Margaret Trezevant, Tampa, Fla.
Lien Truong, Eureka, Calif.
Clarissa Payne Uvegi, New York
Adam Vinson, Jenkintown, Pa.* 3rd prize
Dave Woody, Fort Collins, Colo.* 1st prize
John Randall Younger, Charlottesville, Va.
