Daphne Todd OBE Hon. RP

Daphne Todd has the unusual distinction of having been awarded First Prize at the 2010 BP Portrait Awards, reputedly the most important portrait prize in the world. Back in 1983, she won Second Prize (when it was called the John Player Award) at the Portrait Awards. In the interim, she was elected the first female President of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters (1994-2000) and was awarded an OBE for services to the Arts in 2002.

She is perhaps best known for her portraits and currently has four in the permanent collection of the NPG, (Sir Christopher Ondaatje, Spike Milligan, Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover, and Dame Janet Baker) and a portrait drawing in the collection of HM the Queen, but, having studied at the Slade School of Fine Art as an undergraduate and postgraduate, she considers herself simply an analytical painter of the seen world. Her landscapes, still lifes, and figure studies are exhibited at Messums Gallery in Cork St, where she has had four solo shows since 2002. She is a Trustee of the Heatherley School of Art in Chelsea and an Ambassador for East Sussex, where she lives on a small farm.

Image: Daphne Todd OBE PPRP, Me in a magnifying

RP Member and former RP president was awarded first BP Portrait Award in 2010, which reputedly is the most important portrait prize in the world. She won the award after submitting the last portrait she painted of her mother after she died, in which she painted the haunting photo over three days.

'Of course, it's a striking image to come across, paintings of dead people are always affecting', she said. " I think she looks magnificent."

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