Religious art aside—if God created man in his image, there’s no art more divine than the portrait.
From May 8 to 11, some of the world’s leading portrait and figurative artists will be drawing, painting, sculpting, and sharing their expertise at the annual Portrait Society of America’s “The Art of the Portrait” Conference, at the Hyatt Regency Reston in Virginia.
The Portrait Tradition
Portraits have been painted as far back as antiquity, as the lyric poet Horace (65 B.C.–8 B.C.) attests in “Epistles, Book II”: “Suspendit picta vultum mentemque tabella” (“In painting, he shows both the face and the mind”).Renaissance artist and art historian Giorgio Vasari admired the tradition in his 1568 work “The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects”:
‘The Art of the Portrait’
The conference opens on May 8 with the Face-Off event, when over 750 attendees will be able to see 18 faculty artists create portraits in oil, watercolor, charcoal, egg tempera, and clay directly from life, simulating how art apprentices once learned in traditional ateliers. In the evening, three upcoming young artists will demonstrate their skills.Many of the Face-Off event artists will present classes and workshops, and participate in panel discussions throughout the conference. They'll be covering every aspect of portraiture, including anatomy, the value of color, and the fundamentals of composition.
Among those artists is American Michelle Dunaway. In her “Bringing Your Creative Vision to Life” workshop, she’ll finish a complex painting that she’s been working on for two and a half weeks. She’ll show attendees “how to bring out the finishing features of the face, [and] how to get the most important aspect of the portrait, which is the emotive content—not just the likeness of the person but the essence of the person,” she said on a recent Zoom call about the conference.
For those unable to attend in person, the society offers a virtual ticket for the main stage workshops.
International Portrait Competition
The conference culminates with the Award Banquet & Gala on May 10, when the society announces the award winners of its International Portrait Competition (IPC).This year’s IPC received over 3,000 entries from around the world, including works in oil, clay, wood, resin, pastel, charcoal, graphite, colored pencil, and Carrara marble.
A panel of three judges took nine rounds to evaluate the entries. In addition to assessing the artists’ technical skills, they also looked for original concepts and compositions showing aesthetic complexity and cultural significance. They selected 19 finalists’ works: two sculptures, three drawings, and 14 oil paintings. These will be displayed at the conference, and members of the public can gain free entry to the finalists’ gallery for the duration of the conference.
Select IPC Finalists
British sculptor Tim Bates’s portrait bust “A.J.B” made the final cut. He apprenticed at Wells Cathedral Stonemasons in Somerset, UK, and is a Yeoman of The Worshipful Company of Masons, a historic livery company. As a classically trained stone carver and architectural stonemason based near Cambridge, UK, he’s worked on many historic buildings.He also uses traditional stone-carving techniques to carve portraits in marble and limestone. He carved “A.J.B” from the Carrara marble that Michelangelo favored.
“My sculptural work is inspired by my experiences and interactions with people, places and things, in a fast-paced, ever-changing and all too often disposable world. Capturing these fleeting observations in the timeless medium of stone is my antidote,” he states on his website.
He’s looking forward to attending the conference and seeing how the processes of sculpting and painting portraits align. “I’m extremely excited to see how painters work; it’s not an area that I’m familiar with,” he said on a recent Zoom call about the conference.
Accomplished American painter Alexandra Tyng’s candid portrait “As I Am“ also made the final. She taught herself how to paint, largely by copying old masters’ works and absorbing traditional art books.
She’s been exhibiting her art for over 50 years and has works in museums and galleries in the United States, the UK, and Estonia.
She recently won the Allied Artists of America Associate Show 2024 Grand Prize for “Worlds Within Worlds” and has won several top Portrait Society of America awards over the years, notably the First Place Award at the 2012 IPC for “Year at Sea.”
Tyng approaches each new portrait as if she’s off on a “new adventure.” She first gets to know and understand her sitter before envisioning the portrait in her mind, and often adds symbols to her work. In the aptly titled “As I Am,” her sitter appears relaxed, sitting on a comfy wooden chair on a plain tiled floor. There’s no indication of who or where he is. He’s in shorts and shirtless, holding his glasses, as if he’s just been interrupted from reading in the sun room. The portrait shows Tyng’s knowledge of anatomy and her skill in rendering different textures: the wood, velvet cushion, shorts, and skin. “As I Am” also demonstrates Tyng’s knack for rendering the character of her subject.
Honoring Brilliance
In addition to the IPC awards, several special awards will be presented at the gala. American painter and sculptor George Carlson will be presented with the Gold Medal, the society’s highest honor, given to artists who have “dedicated themselves to excellence in their work and a commitment to educating their fellow artists.” For over 60 years, Carlson has deftly sketched, painted, and sculpted the American West. His art can be found in world-renowned museums and galleries. Carlson said: “Back in art school, over sixty years ago, I began to understand how to use my eyes—to observe, to analyze, to appreciate. It takes a lifetime of dedication to truly develop that awareness.” The society’s Gold Medal honors “his lifelong pursuit of artistic excellence.”Ecuadorian sculptor Rubén Astudillo will be given his First Place, Future Generation Award (for artists 18 to 25 years old) for his portrait in resin.
The society will present Signature Status Awards to American artists John Borowicz, Ali Cavanaugh, John Darley, and Canadian sculptor Louise Weir, honoring these “practicing and accomplished artists who are dedicated to the educational mission and high aesthetic standards of the Portrait Society of America.”
A Greater Purpose
The great Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) once said: “What we have is given by God and to teach it to others is to return it to Him.”Many attendees return to the conference time and time again. It’s a place to learn and connect with the spirit of art.
Dunaway often hears her students say that attending their first conference changed their lives. “We hear that a lot. … It is because [at the conference] you’re with people that … can relate to struggles and successes that you’ve had and it’s encouraging and inspiring,” she said.
One of last year’s attendees said:
“There was a feeling that we all belong to something greater than ourselves, that what we learn is to be handed down to the next generation of seekers; that generosity continues in the Portrait Society. There isn’t a nature of hidden secrets and guarded techniques, but a spirit of great openhandedness that moves us all collectively into greater purpose, deeper meaning, and soulful portraiture.
“I was so amazed and grateful to be a part of it, to have learned and benefited from living masters, whose own lives had been made richer by the great artists who came before them.”
A Selection of Finalists’ Works
