If you’re visiting the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery over the summer do find time to view a new portrait by leading British artist and President of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Alastair Adams.

‘Marc’ is a portrait of Marc Crank, Chief Executive of a sight loss charity in the north west of England.  Marc was born with Neurofibromatosis and has volunteered with Changing Faces for 15 years, regularly speaking about his experience of living with a disfigurement in the media.

Marc was researching a masters thesis on the rise of professionalism in fifth century Athens when he was struck by the Greek concept of the beautiful and the good, kallos kai agathos, and its modern prevalence.  He said, “I believe that we cling to the idea that being good-looking, able-bodied and young embodies success and we need to move away from this way of thinking.”

The portrait was chosen by the National Portrait Gallery from over 100 paintings which appeared in the Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ Annual Exhibition in May and highlights the diversity of approaches to representation that contemporary portrait painting can address.  It is on temporary loan in the ground floor galleries from 16 June until 20 September 2009.