Two Kilkenny artists shortlisted for Zurich Portrait Prize

The Zurich Portrait Prize and Zurich Young Portrait Prize exhibitions 2022 opened on Saturday, November 26, 2022 at the National Gallery of Ireland.  

From hundreds of entries, the shortlists of this year’s Zurich Portrait Prize and Zurich Young Portrait Prize are on display in the Portrait Gallery.

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Twenty-six artists, working across a variety of media, have made it through to the final stage of the Zurich Portrait Prize, while 20 young artists aged between four and eighteen years old have been shortlisted for the Zurich Young Portrait Prize.

Two Kilkenny artists have been shortlisted for the Zurich Portrait Prize: Bernadette Kiely for her oil painting 'An artist becomes their work – portrait of Paul Mosse in his studio', 2021; and Vera Klute for her oil painting 'Self-Portrait', 2020. 

The winner of the Zurich Portrait Prize 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.

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Two additional awards of €1,500 will be given to highly commended works.

Judges for the Zurich Portrait Prize are Diana Copperwhite, artist; Nick Miller, artist; and Anna O'Sullivan, Director of the Butler Gallery, Kilkenny.

Brendan Rooney, Head Curator, National Gallery of Ireland, said, “Now in its ninth consecutive year, the Portrait Prize continues to celebrate the talent that flourishes among artists working in Ireland and Irish artists abroad.

"This year, the National Gallery of Ireland is delighted to showcase portraits by twenty-six remarkable artists. These works were shortlisted from hundreds of submissions, as high in quality as they were disparate in character. As we emerge from two years of pandemic, portraiture helps to remind us of the fundamental importance of human interaction and engagement.”

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Exhibitions of shortlisted works run at the National Gallery of Ireland between 26 November 2022 and 2 April 2023. 

The exhibition will then travel to the Regional Cultural Centre, Letterkenny, Co. Donegal, where it will be displayed between 3 June and 2 September 2023.