Monday, April 02, 2018

National Portrait Gallery: Call for Entries for Fifth Triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery announces an open call from May 28 through Sept. 3, 2018 for submissions to its fifth triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition

Established in 2006, the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition invites artists (18 and over) living and working in the United States to submit one portrait for consideration. Selected artworks are featured in a museum exhibition and some artists are awarded prizes. This year, the competition will focus on broadening the definition of portraiture while highlighting the genre’s relevance in contemporary art and culture. The first-prize winner will receive $25,000 and a commission to portray a remarkable living American for the National Portrait Gallery’s collection. Additional cash prizes will be awarded. Submissions from each finalist will form “The Outwin 2019: American Portraiture Today” exhibition, which will be displayed at the Portrait Gallery from Nov. 2, 2019, through Sept. 7, 2020, before traveling to other cities in the United States. Previous competitions have received more than 3,000 entries.

Most recently, Baltimore-based artist Amy Sherald, who won first prize in the 2016 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, created the official portrait of Mrs. Michelle Obama for the Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection. Sherald’s “Miss Everything, Unsuppressed Deliverance” (2013), alongside work by all 2016 finalists, continues on tour as “The Outwin: American Portraiture Today” exhibition travels to the Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from June 1 through Aug. 26.

Guest jurors for the 2019 competition are:
·         Harry Gamboa Jr., essayist, photographer, performance artist and founding member of the Chicano collective Asco (lives in Los Angeles)
·         Lauren Haynes, curator of contemporary art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas
·         Byron Kim, artist, senior critic at Yale University School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut (lives in Brooklyn, New York)
·         Jefferson Pinder, artist and professor of sculpture and contemporary practices at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
·         TaĆ­na Caragol, curator of painting and sculpture and Latino art and history, National Portrait Gallery
·         Brandon Brame Fortune, chief curator, National Portrait Gallery
·         Dorothy Moss, curator of painting and sculpture and director of the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, National Portrait Gallery