British portraiture

[Heidi Maiers]

I haven't paid much attention to British portriat painting, but I have noticed that portrait sculpture is extremely popular over there. Some of the best portrait sculptors I know are british and were taught in the traditional ways - some are current or past employees of Madam Toussaud's in England.
Anyway, here are a few British sites full of some fantastic portrait sculpture if you care to browse...

http://www.portrait-sculpture.org/

http://www.rbs.org.uk/pages/gallerie.../moreinfo.html

http://www.commissionaportrait.com/q...word=sculpture

[Simon Bland]

Having just read Sanden's response to the WSJ article I wanted to post a link to Richard Stone's web site. He is not an artist (as far as I can tell) that has received much media attention in recent years, but his work is excellent.

http://www.richardstoneuk.com/


Simon

[Julie Deane]

Stone's "Flavia" portrait is wonderful. The others are very good too, but that one is of his child, and the emotional connection shows.

[Bianca Berends]

This is an interesting discussion. I also just finished a portrait for the BP Portrait Award and I am now working on a portrait for the competition organized by The Portrait Society of America. The subjects I choose for these two competitions are quite different from each other.

I have noticed that portraiture in general in the US indeed tends to be more classical looking, edges are softer, the choice of clothing can be a bit

[Grethe Angen]

I believe there should be room for both classic traditional and more contemporary style portraits, but I find it hard to accept that they are put up against each other. Nothing is too old fashioned nor too modern. What counts is that they are created honestly, and not primary for the news headlines.
Though I also believe that portraits built on the classical tradition should not be judged along with modernist
style portraits. It does`nt make sense for classical music to be set up against pop music in a competition. Its impossible as I see it.