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The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present.

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National Photographic Portrait Prize 2014

Previous exhibition
from Saturday 22 March until Monday 9 June 2014
Matthew Martin, 2013 by Andrew Cowen
Matthew Martin, 2013 by Andrew Cowen

The National Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition is selected from a national field of entries, reflecting the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects. The winner for 2014 is

Matthew Martin by Andrew Cowen

Untitled by David Apostol was highly commended.

This year's Prize was diverse as usual. Throughout the selection process, the photographic portraits that continued to rise to the top told us something deep about the sitter. We were looking for portraits that gave a strong sense of the person depicted. When it came down to the final judging, our top ten, then three, then two, showed us an increasingly subtle and real sense of the person in the portrait. The winning portrait is striking in its minimalism and it shows a cloudy complexity of thinking - the person in the portrait is looking outwards and inwards. The guest judge, photographer Greg Weight, says the winning portrait 'achieves maximum visual impact through the use of minimal, elegant composition - and then it begins to work psychologically. There is no doubt in this portrait Mathew Martin appears to be deep in thought. It's like a frozen Bill Viola moment; the more I look at it the more I'm intrigued. It's a perfect use of restraint by the photographer Andrew Cowen.'

45 NPPP 2014 portraits

1 Untitled, 2013 by David Apostol. 2 Andrew, 2013 by Andrew M Lance. 3 Reg, 2013 by Steven William Siewert. 4 Atef, 2013 by Alex Weltlinger. 5 Portrait of Minika, 2013 by Grace Costa. 6 Vishwananda (Graham), 2013 by Lucia Rossi.

Related people

Dr Sarah Engledow (curator)

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The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present. We respectfully advise that this site includes works by, images of, names of, voices of and references to deceased people.

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