National Gallery of Ireland in final call-out to Louth artists for Zurich Portrait Prize

The National Gallery of Ireland has announced the judges for the 2022 Zurich Portrait Prize and Zurich Young Portrait Prize competitions. Judges for the Zurich Portrait Prize are Anna O'Sullivan, Director of the Butler Gallery, Kilkenny; Nick Miller, artist; and Diana Copperwhite, artist. Judges for the Zurich Young Portrait Prize are Una Sealy RHA, artist; Nick Roche, comic illustrator and Janet McLean, curator, National Gallery of Ireland. The closing date for entries to the Zurich Portrait Prize and Zurich Young Portrait Prize is 22 June 2022.  

For the Zurich Portrait Prize, the competition showcasing contemporary portraiture, the Gallery invites submissions from across the island of Ireland, and from Irish artists living abroad. The Zurich Young Portrait Prize, now in its fourth year, is open to young people aged 18 and under. 

The Zurich Portrait Prize aims to encourage interest in contemporary portraiture and to showcase the National Portrait Collection at the National Gallery of Ireland. The winner of the competition will receive a cash prize of €15,000 and will be commissioned to create a work for the national portrait collection, for which they will be awarded a further €5,000. Two additional awards of €1,500 will be given to highly commended works. 

The Zurich Young Portrait Prize, which aims to foster and support creativity, originality and self-expression in children and young people returns for its fourth year in 2022. The competition is split into four age categories and is open to young people of all abilities aged up to 18 from across the country. Winners in each age category and an overall winner will be chosen from a shortlist of 20 works. Winners will receive a bespoke art box and a cash prize. 

Exhibitions featuring shortlisted works in both competitions run at the National Gallery of Ireland between 26 November 2022 and 2 April 2023. The exhibitions will then travel to Donegal where they will run at Regional Cultural Centre in Letterkenny from 3 June 2023 to 2 September 2023. This is the first time that the competition exhibitions will be on display in Ulster.

Highly commended artists and an overall winner for the Zurich Portrait Prize, as well as category winners and an overall winner for the Zurich Young Portrait Prize, will be announced in early December 2022, after the exhibitions have opened at the Gallery. Find out more at www.nationalgallery.ie.