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BP Portrait Award The BP Portrait Award 2006 is the most prestigious portrait competition in the world, promoting the very best in contemporary portrait painting. With a first prize of £25,000 the exhibition has proved the launch pad for the careers of a number of successful portrait artists. The 2006 exhibition featured over fifty works from an international list of artists that together display a diverse range of styles and painterly techniques, highlighting the vitality of portrait painting today. BP Portrait Award 2007: Call for Entries - Enter online today | Competition Rules BP Portrait Award 2006: Winner and Prizes | Visitor's Choice | Exhibitors & Prints | Catalogue BP Portrait Award 2005: Winner and Prizes | Exhibitors | Catalogue BP Portrait Award 2004: Winner and Exhibitors | Catalogue Commissioned portraits
Kitty by Andrew Tift © the artist			The winner of the BP Portrait Award 2006 is Andrew Tift for Kitty Andrew Tift (b.1968) who lives in the West Midlands graduated with a first-class degree and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Central England. His winning portrait is a triptych of Lucian Freud's first wife, Kitty Garman, whom Freud painted many times, perhaps most famously in "Girl with White Dog" (1950-51). She used to live just outside Andrew's home town of Walsall, whose New Art Gallery houses her family's works of art, the Garman Ryan Collection. Andrew had been working on portraits of Kitty for a small show at the Gallery and this triptych is part of that series. Its style was inspired by John Freeman's 1960s Face To Face TV interviews. Andrew has exhibited in the BP Portrait Award 10 times and has been short-listed for first prize on four previous occasions. He won the BP Travel Award in 1995 with Sayonara Pet which focused on the cradle-to-grave work ethic in the Japanese car manufacturing industry. His previous sitters include Tony Benn and Neil and Glenys Kinnock. Andrew Tift says: 'I work in a highly detailed, intensely realistic manner and aim for an absolutely pure and objective likeness. I seek to convey people in the most understanding, intimate and sympathetic way that I can.' Andrew Tift wins £25,000 and a commission, at the National Portrait Gallery Trustees' discretion, worth £4,000. Kitty is painted in acrylic on board and measures 420 x 1000 mm.