Vera Klute Wins Hennessy Portrait Prize

On Tuesday, 17th November, guests gathered in the Millennium Wing of the National Gallery of Ireland as the winner of the 2015 Hennessy Portrait Prize was announced. Vera Klute was awarded the prize of €15,000 for her oil on canvas painting entitled, Anne Ryder, and she will also receive a commission worth €5,000 to produce a portrait for inclusion in the National Portrait Collection.

Living and working in Dublin, Vera has exhibited widely both in Ireland and abroad. This year, Vera was awarded the Hennessy Craig Scholarship at the RHA Annual Exhibition and received several Arts Council Bursary Awards, the K+M Evans Award (RHA Annual) and the Emerging Visual Artist Award (Wexford Arts Centre). Some of her recent solo exhibitions include the LAB and the RHA (Dublin), QSS Gallery (Belfast), the Butler Gallery (Kilkenny) and Wexford Arts Centre. Vera is currently working towards a solo exhibition in the Molesworth Gallery in 2016.

Over two hundred and sixty artists entered the Hennessy Portrait Prize 2015, which is now in its second year. Of these, 12 were shortlisted by the judging panel comprising Aidan Dunne (art critic, The Irish Times); Colin Davidson RUA (artist); Catherine Marshall (scholar and curator) and Anne Hodge (curator, prints and drawings, NGI) and chaired by the Director of the National Gallery of Ireland, Sean Rainbird. An exhibition of the 12 shortlisted entries is on display at the National Gallery of Ireland until Sunday, 14th February 2016. Admission is free.