Artist brushes with the elite as latest portraits are chosen for top exhibition

The Batley-based artist’s drawing, Man in a striped shirt, has been selected from over 1,300 entries to appear alongside work by some of Britain’s leading portrait artists in the annual Royal Society of Portrait Painters Exhibition.

It is the third successive year in which his work had been selected for this exhibition.

His drawing will hang alongside portraits the Queen, patron of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.

The work will be eligible for major prizes, including the £10,000 Ondaatje Prize for Portraiture, the £2,000 Prince of Wales Prize Award for Drawing and the £3,000 de Laszlo Foundation Award.

This year’s exhibition will be on display at the Mall Galleries near Trafalgar Square from May 3 to 18.

Mr Noble also heard recently that he has again been selected for the BP Portrait Award Exhibition which will be held at the National Portrait Gallery, London, from June 21 to September 23.

This year he submitted his painting, The Twins: Portrait of my wife Jackie and her sister Christine. As well as the two sisters the painting also includes a self-portrait, and portraits of Christine’s husband Shaun and Amy the cat. The painting is one of 55 selected from a total of 2187 works submitted from all over the world. The painting took almost three months to complete, so rejection would have been a real blow, he said.

Mr Noble is based in his studio at Redbrick Mill, Batley Carr. His work can be seen on the website www.tonynoble-artist.com. Visitors to the studio are welcome but phone in advance on 07855 922616.