Congratulations to Portrait Diploma student Marlies Forster, winner of this year’s Mr. Heatherley Composition Prize. This annual competition is sponsored by the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. This year’s prize was awarded by Miriam Escofet RP.
The Mr. Heatherley Exhibition and Critique is an annual summer vacation project and competition initiated by the late Principal Emeritus John Walton and based on a similar project originally given to painting students at the Slade. Students of the Portrait Diploma are asked to create a large group portrait and must grapple with the challenge of organising the composition of a group of people who may not necessarily be able to pose for the artist at the same time. This project is often a turning point for the students, taking the work of their first year into new areas of personal choice and expression and showing the way forward to the next year of study.
