Third Annual Teen Portrait Competition at the National Portrait Gallery

Between the ages of 13 to 17? Live in the U.S.? Make art? Those who answer “yes” to those questions can enter work in the third annual online Teen Portrait Competition of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. The museum opened a “call for entries” and teens can submit portraits, electronically, in the medium of painting, drawing, photography and video through the deadline now extended to Friday, Oct. 30. The winning portrait will be printed and displayed at the National Portrait Gallery in 2016. Honorable mention entries will be posted on the National Portrait Gallery website.

“The competition was designed to involve local teenagers in the design and implementation of a competition for their peers,” said Rebecca Kasemeyer, director of education at the Portrait Gallery. “The national outreach offered by an online teen portrait competition is the drive behind the project.”

Created under the rubric “for teens, by teens,” local teenagers designed the competition for their peers under the supervision of the museum’s education department.

The theme for year three entries is interact and interaction. Teens should consider how they interact with their subject, the art of portraiture and any interactions that take place between the subject(s) and the setting.  

Entry applications may only be submitted online. The panel of judges is composed of nine Washington D.C., metro-area teens, National Portrait Gallery Curator Dorothy Moss and a guest juror.

This program has been made possible through the support of the Honorable Richard Blumenthal and Mrs. Cynthia M. Blumenthal, Capital Group Companies Charitable Foundation and the Reinsch Family Education Endowment.

More information about entering to the competition, rules and requirements is available at http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/teen/index.html.

National Portrait Gallery

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery tells the multifaceted story of America through the individuals who have shaped its culture. Through the visual arts, performing arts and new media, the Portrait Gallery portrays poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists whose lives tell the American story.

The National Portrait Gallery is part of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American

Art and Portraiture at Eighth and F streets N.W., Washington, D.C. Smithsonian

Information: (202) 633-1000. Website: npg.si.edu. Connect with the museum at @NPG, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Tumblr.

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