NPG’s Annual Portrait Award: Inside The Shortlist

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The Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award is back for 2025

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London’s National Portrait Gallery is thought to be the oldest gallery in the world dedicated entirely to the art of portraiture – but its collection is by no means antiquated or stuffy. Indeed, since 1969, contemporary living figures have graced the walls alongside important historical paintings like the Chandos portrait of William Shakespeare or Patrick Branwell Bronte’s painting of his sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne. And every year the Gallery hosts a prestigious prize, showcasing the world’s very best living portrait painters. Called the Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award, three artists have been shortlisted for the prestigious 2025 edition. Here’s what you need to know.

National Portrait Gallery’s 43rd Portrait Award: The Shortlist

More than 1,314 entries from around the world have been whittled down to just three painters shortlisted for the 43rd edition of the National Portrait Gallery’s annual Portrait Award. They are:

Tim Benson for Cliff, Outreach Worker (2024)
Moira Cameron for A Life Lived (2024)
Martyn Harris for Memories (2024)

L-R: Cliff, Outreach Worker (2024) by Tim Benson; Memories (2024) by Martyn Harris; A Life Lived (2024) by Moira Cameron.

In making it into the top three, each artist will receive a prize – though the winner isn’t set to be revealed until 18 July 2025. The top prize is £35,000, with the second place winner receiving £12,000, and third place £10,000.

With entries submitted anonymously, Tim Benson, Moira Cameron and Martyn Harris’ work was sifted from the pack by a panel of distinguished judges: art historian and academic at The Courtauld Institute of Art, Professor Dorothy Price FBA; visual artist, Maggi Hambling; opera singer, artist and writer, Peter Brathwaite; Rosie Broadley, NPG’s joint-head of curatorial and senior curator of 20th century collections; and the NPG’s director of programmes and partnerships, Rosie Wilson.

These three portraits will be on display later this year in a special exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery alongside the work of 43 more artists who entered the prize and impressed the judges. Entries for the 2025 Prize came from more than 1,000 artists across 60 countries. ‘The skill, artistry and quality of the submissions is inspiring,’ says the NPG’s contemporary curator Amy Emmerson Martin, ‘and I very much look forward to seeing these works hanging in the Gallery soon, free to access for all. I hope visitors enjoy this eclectic mix of contemporary portraits and the stories and sitters that inspired them.’ Find the full list of exhibiting artists below.

Benson is no stranger to the Portrait Award: his paintings have been commended by the NPG in 2012, 2020 and 2024, though this is his first time on the shortlist. Cameron and Harris, however, have never had work exhibited as part of the Portrait Prize, though Harris’ work has been selected several times for the Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ annual exhibition.

To enter the Portrait Award, artists must be over the age of 18. To nurture young talent, however, the prize also offers the Young Artist Award which aims to support the career development of a promising talent aged between 18 and 30. The winner will be awarded £9,000 in July.

One artist will also be awarded a £14,000 commission. However, because the commission is only awarded every other year, all of the artists selected for exhibition in 2024 and 2025 will be eligible. The winner will also be revealed in July.

SEE IT

To see the paintings for yourself, the free-to-visit Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award 2025 exhibition will run at the National Portrait Gallery (St. Martin’s Pl, London WC2H 0HE) from 10 July to 12 October 2025. By then, the winner will have been revealed, but visitors will also get to see the work of 43 portrait painters alongside the top three shortlisted artists. Find out more at npg.org.uk

Exhibiting artists: