Portrait Award judges announced

WORDS Malibongwe Tyilo

Judith Mason, Vulindlela Philani Elliot Nyoni and Hayden Proud have been appointed the judges of the Sanlam Private Investments National Portrait Award.

Last year we announced the launch of the Sanlam Private Investments National Portrait Award, a portraiture competition that is open to everyone, professional artists and gifted members of the public. The award comes with a monetary prize of R100 000. We also mentioned that the submitted artworks would be judged by a panel of three judges. Well, the judges have been announced and they are Judith Mason, Vulindlela Philani Elliot Nyoni and Hayden Proud.

All three of them bring a wealth of experience from diverse sources.  At 75 years of age and having had her first solo show in 1964, Judith has a career that has spanned 45 years during which she has represented South Africa at the Venice Biennale, Art Basel and other prestigious international art fairs. She is one of our country’s most distinguished artists and her work is represented in all the major SA art collections and museums.

Zimbabwean-born 37-year-old artist Vulindlela, although much younger, has already shown widely on a national level and he continues to expand his international profile. In addition to being a practicing artist, Vulindlela has also been a printmaking lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch’s Department of Visual Art since 2001. He holds a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Hayden Proud, also Zimbabwean-born, was originally the curator of historical collections at the South African National Gallery but, when it amalgamated into Iziko Museums in 2001, his brief was extended to include curatorship of the Michaelis Collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings at Cape Town’s Old Town House. He works strategically with the collection to make it relevant to a new generation of art enthusiasts, and therefore creating a dialogue between our colonial past and our transformational present.

Entries for the competition only close on 19 August, so you still have plenty time to enter but best you get cracking on the making! The award ceremony will take place on 27 August at the Rust-en-Vrede Art Gallery, Durbanville, where the short-listed works will be on exhibition and open for public viewing from 28 August to 8 October 2013.

For more information on the competition, entry forms and competition rules visit www.spiportraitaward.co.za.