Portrait in My Mind Museum of Women in the Arts

Smart News | April 29, 2022

Portrait of a Covid-Era Haircut Claims First Prize in the Outwin Boochever Competition

Judges for the triennial National Portrait Gallery competition chose Alison Elizabeth Taylor's "marquetry hybrid" out of a pool of 42 finalists

Alison Elizabeth Taylor'sAnthony Cuts Under the Williamsburg Span, Morning (2020), received beginning prize in the 2022 Outwin competition. Drove of the artist © Alison Elizabeth Taylor

In the portrait, pilus stylist Anthony Payne crouches slightly, his legs akimbo as he combs his fingers through a seated customer's dark brown hair. Both wear face masks—a nod to the pandemic that echoes the scene'southward setting: not a traditional hair salon, but a graffiti-covered underpass beneath a Brooklyn bridge.

It'due south an epitome that only makes sense later on March 2020, when Covid-19 shuttered businesses around the world and sent billions scrambling for alternatives to once-mundane activities: commuting to the part; watching movies at the theater; and, equally seen in Alison Elizabeth Taylor'southward prize-winning artwork, getting a haircut.

Created in 2020, Taylor'southward "marquetry hybrid" portrait—a term she coined herself to draw the alloy of paints, inkjet prints and wood veneers that make up the work—has claimed first prize in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, a triennial contest hosted by the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery (NPG). The museum announced the news this morning, ahead of the April thirty opening of a traveling exhibition featuring the contest's 42 finalists.

Detail of Alison Elizabeth Taylor's Anthony Cuts Under the Williamsburg Bridge, Morning — Particular of Alison Elizabeth Taylor'sAnthony Cuts Nether the Williamsburg Bridge, Morning Collection of the artist © Alison Elizabeth Taylor

Alison Elizabeth Taylor, Anthony Cuts Under the Williamsburg Bridge, Morning, 2020, marquetry hybrid — Alison Elizabeth Taylor,*Anthony Cuts Nether the Williamsburg Bridge, Morning*, 2020, marquetry hybrid Collection of the creative person © Alison Elizabeth Taylor

"Every Outwin ... provides new insights into contemporary culture, and so it is not surprising to meet representative art that documents a spectrum of emotions and responses to the pandemic," says NPG's manager, Kim Sajet, in a statement. "... Taylor's winning portrait is an especially powerful example of how people turned everyday tasks into shared moments of resilience and hope that made us stronger as a community."

The Brooklyn-based artist will receive a $25,000 cash laurels and a commission to create a portrait of a living person for the gallery's permanent collection. Co-ordinate to the statement, a panel of jurors selected her portrait, titled Anthony Cuts Under the Williamsburg Span, Morning, from a pool of two,700 entries, many of which addressed central bug of the past three years: Covid-nineteen, the ongoing fight against systemic racism in the The states, isolation, family and community, love and loss. Taylor's piece of work, which shows how Payne set upwards shop outside during the pandemic, offer haircuts in commutation for donations to the Black Lives Affair movement, touches on virtually all of these themes.

Tom Jones, Elizah Leonard (from the series Strong Unrelenting Spirits), 2019, inkjet print with beads, rhinestones and shells — Tom Jones,*Elizah Leonard* (from the series *Potent Unrelenting Spirits*), 2019, inkjet print with beads, rhinestones and shells IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Atomic number 26, NM; museum purchase, 2020 © Tom Jones

Second prize went to Elizah Leonard (2019), a dewdrop-embellished photograph of a Native American girl by Ho-Chunk artist Tom Jones. Pao Houa Her'due south untitled photograph of a Hmong man, also captured in 2019, took third place. Shortlisted artists Elsa María Meléndez, Joel Daniel Phillips and Quraysh Ali Lansana, Stuart Robertson, and Vincent Valdez all received commendations.

Beyond the viii prizewinners, the 42 finalists include a collage of creative person Paula Gillen's friend Taishya standing in outer infinite; Melissa Ann Pinney's photo of a Chicago student looking at her reflection in a public school bathroom; and a snapshot of a container holding the ashes of David Hilliard's father, who died of Covid in 2020, resting on a table in a manmade pond. Voting on the people's choice winner—selected from the full slate of finalists—will take identify online, with the honoree announced in October.

First held in 2006, the Outwin asks artists in the U.S., Puerto Rico, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa and the Virgin Islands to "submit work that challenges traditional definitions of portraiture," per the NPG's website. Entries take any number of forms, from paintings to sculptures to functioning fine art to fourth dimension-based media. Participants run the gamut from college students to renowned artists at the peak of their careers.

Pao Houa Her, untitled (man), 2019, inkjet print — Pao Houa Her,*untitled (homo)*, 2019, inkjet print Drove of the artist, courtesy of Bockley Gallery © Pao Houa Her

Elsa María Meléndez, Milk, 2020, canvas with silkscreen, embroidery, ink and other textiles — Elsa María Meléndez, *Milk*, 2020, sail with silkscreen, embroidery, ink and other textiles Drove of the creative person © Elsa María Meléndez

During the bullheaded choice process, judges—including NPG curators and outside scholars and artists—appoint in "heated exchanges and vigorous debate," wrote Dorothy Moss, curator of painting and sculpture at the gallery and a member of the 2022 jury, for Smithsonian magazine in 2014.

"[T]he choice process is revelatory, providing moments for the jurors … to further study the evolving nuances of identity through portraiture in its multiple forms as it changes in the intervening three years between each competition," Moss added.

Jurors besides examine how artists engage with the medium's lengthy history—an aspect of the competition reflected in the decision to let participants to depict historical figures, not but living subjects, from 2019 on.

"In this competition, you see work that is about the contemporary moment and well-nigh issues that nosotros are all grappling with as we sentinel the news," Moss told Smithsonian's Andrea Michelson in 2019. "But we are too showing piece of work about historical figures whose lives may be at risk of being erased if they aren't represented by artists today."

Melissa Ann Pinney, Portrait of Jael (from the series Signals & Mysteries: Photographs From ChicagoPublic Schools), 2019, inkjet print — Melissa Ann Pinney, *Portrait of Jael* (from the series *Signals & Mysteries: Photographs From Chicago Public Schools*), 2019, inkjet print Drove of the artist © Melissa Ann Pinney

The almost recent winner of the Outwin was Hugo Crosthwaite's cease-motion blitheness of Berenice Sarmiento Chávez, a migrant from Tijuana, Mexico. Due to the pandemic, Crosthwaite has not yet created his commission for the gallery. Previous commissions include a portrait of Start Lady Michelle Obama past 2016 winner Amy Sherald, a video of jazz musician Esperanza Spalding by 2013 winner Bo Gehring, an inkjet print of chef Alice Waters by 2009 winner Dave Woody and an oil painting of Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver past 2006 winner David Lenz. Sherald's commission, which featured Obama in a bold, geometric gown confronting a bright blue background, proved so pop that the NPG sent it on a national tour aslope Kehinde Wiley's 2018 portrait of President Barack Obama.

"The Outwin … was founded to support the next wave of contemporary portraiture in the Us," said Sajet in an October 2021 argument. "The multifariousness of this edition'south entries, from geographic origin to subject field matter and media, reflects both the multifaceted story of the Us today and the unique perspectives and lenses through which contemporary artists encounter that story."

" The Outwin 2022: American Portraiture Today " is on view at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. from Apr 30 to February 26, 2023. The show will then travel to cities across the U.Southward. Readers are invited to vote for the People'south Selection Award through October 16, 2022.