Portrait Of Dead Mother Could Win BP Prize

The Guardian reports that a painting shortlisted for the UK's most important art prize for portraiture depicts the artist's 100-year-old mother shortly after her death. The work, one of three in the running for the £25,000 BP art Portrait award, was made at an undertaker's premises over three days, just after Annie Mary Todd had died in hospital.The artist, 63-year-old Daphne Todd, had painted her mother several times during her lifetime, and they had agreed that she could paint her after her death. "I talked things through with the undertaker, and they kindly gave me the time and space to paint the portrait. She was on a trolley, raised up on pillows, as I remember last seeing her in hospital." She added: "For me it was a form of digesting facts ... it was very therapeutic spending that amount of time making the work; in fact, though I miss my mother very much, I didn't seem to do any other sort of grieving." Studying her mother so deeply after her death "was a form of finding out, of analysis". "People do change and move after death. They sink into themselves; they continue on their way." She had worked on the piece until she began to "feel uncomfortable", she added. The other two shortlisted artists are 38-year-old American David Eichenberg, for Tim II; and the British artist Michael Gaskell, 47, for Harry. The art award this year received 2,177 entries, an increase of more than 270 on last year. An exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, which opens on 24 June and then tours to Lincoln and Aberdeen, will show 58 works. The winner will be announced on 22 June. See the image by pressing the link. For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art