More than one thoroughly impressed by Queen portrait competition
10:00am Saturday 6th October 2012 in News By Rachel Bishop
Portrait: Esteemed judges gathered for the competition
The Portrait of the Queen competition reached the final stages this week, as famous faces and big names in the art world made their final decisions.
Nicky Philipps, who has painted Princes William and Prince Harry brought her royal painting expertise to the table, while Made in Chelsea Star and art graduate Hugo Taylor brought some star glamour.
They were among the judges who deliberated on more than the 1,000 entries at York House, Twickenham.
Sipping champagne and nibbling on vol-au-vents the art experts were looking for a variety of specifications, including originality and the best resemblance to Her Majesty.
Taylor said he chose paintings based on “anything that captured my imagination – anything that stood out from the rest of them”. He said: “I want all of them on my wall.”
Former Richmond mayor, Councillor Clare Head, gathered the judges for the national Portrait of Our Queen art competition.
As part of the contest, five to 18-year-olds were asked to pick up a pen or paintbrush to create a portrait of the Queen.
Philipps said: “I like the idea of getting children involved in art and the diamond jubilee was such a nice event.
“My choices were generally the ones who had spotted what best made a likeness of the Queen.”
Art departments in winning schools will be given prizes to equip and maintain their art departments and winning children will receive a raft of exciting prizes from visits to London and major art galleries to art courses set up by the John Hall Art courses of Venice, which has been helping young artists for 50 years.
Winners are due to be announced next week.
For more information, visit portraitofourqueen.co.uk.
LizzyJ says...
5:58pm Sun 7 Oct 12
- They made it clear they wanted the VA school upfront, and did everything they could to attack and discredit anyone who publicly disagreed with them, labelling them from the outset ad anti-catholic (scaring many RISC supporters into silence).
- They allowed the Catholic primaries to distribute information about the consultation via pupils' book bags and parent mail while advising the non-catholic school leaders to remain neutral (so lots of parents didn't even know the consultation was taking place as little or no info reached them)
- They did not make it clear in the consultation that a free school had expressed interest in the site, and I've heard they also advised local schools not to distribute information about free schools.
That's 3 reasons off the top of my head. I expect there are more.