Third Annual Teen Portrait Competition

For the past three years, the Portrait Gallery has hosted a portrait competition for teen artists nationwide. Exemplifying the concept of “by teens, for teens,” the contest has been designed by nine local D.C.–area teenagers who are interested in art, portraiture, and the Portrait Gallery. The “Teen Design Team” worked on planning, creating and marketing the competition.

This year’s theme is interact and interaction. Portraiture implies an interaction between the sitter and the spectator, but it can also represent an interaction with a setting or an experience. Maia Pramuk, a member of the Teen Design Team, encourages young people across the nation to be creative for the competition, take advantage of the theme, and come up with portraits that have special meaning to them.

The Portrait Gallery will award fourteen prizes: one grand prize; one prize to entrants in each of the following three mediums: painting and drawing, photography, and video; and five honorable mentions to entrants in each of two groups: ages 13–15 and ages 16–17. The grand-prize portrait will be printed and displayed at the National Portrait Gallery in 2016, and the artist will receive a Visa gift card.

Portraits may be submitted until Friday, October 30. More details can be found on our website: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/teen/index.html. This program is sponsored in part by the Reinsch Family Education Endowment.