The Outwin 2025: American Portraiture Today
The Outwin 2025: American Portraiture Today is the seventh edition of the National Portrait Gallery’s triennial national portrait competition, showcasing 34 portraits by 35 artists selected from over 3,300 anonymous submissions. The exhibition presents contemporary portraiture in a wide range of mediums—from painting, photography, and sculpture to immersive, time-based media installations—and features works by artists based in 12 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The competition awards three prizes: a first prize of $25,000 and a museum portrait commission, a second prize of $10,000, and a third prize of $7,500. The exhibition also includes a People’s Choice Award, for which visitors can vote in person or online from the opening through April 5, 2026. The show is co-curated by Taína Caragol and Charlotte Ickes, with a jury that includes art-world experts and the co-curators themselves.
When: January 24, 2026 through August 30, 2026.
Location: Second Floor, North Galleries at the National Portrait Gallery.
Mediums: Painting, photography, sculpture, and immersive time-based media including video installations.
Prizewinners: First Prize – Kameron Neal (Brooklyn, NY) for the two-channel video installation “Down the Barrel (of a Lens)” (2023), a 25-minute 25-second work using declassified NYPD surveillance footage from 1960–1980; Second Prize – Jared Soares (Washington, DC) for the photograph “Misidentified by Artificial Intelligence: Alonzo and Carronne” (2023), portraying a Maryland resident falsely arrested due to facial recognition error; Third Prize – David Antonio Cruz (New York, NY) for the painting “isaiditoncebefore,butnowIfeelitevenmore_feelin’pretty,pretty,pretty” (2023), part of his “chosenfamilies” series, showing the artist with a lifelong friend.
People’s Choice Award: Gloriann Sacha Antonetty-Lebrón and Juan Pablo Vizcaíno for the twelve-channel video “Hebras y Vejigantes” (2023); voting is open in person and online from the exhibition opening through April 5, 2026.
Curators: Taína Caragol, Director of the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition and Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture; and Charlotte Ickes, Curator of Time-Based Media Art and Special Projects.
Jurors: Carla Acevedo-Yates (curator and documenta 16 artistic team member), Huey Copeland (Andrew W. Mellon Chair, University of Pittsburgh), LaToya Ruby Frazier (artist), Daniel Lind-Ramos (artist), and co-curators Caragol and Ickes, along with Rhea L. Combs (former director of curatorial affairs at the Portrait Gallery).
Competition Background: Established in 2006 through a private endowment by Virginia Outwin Boochever, the competition is open to artists aged 18 and over living in the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Each artist may submit one portrait created within the past three years.
Note: The exhibition is free (no price available for entry). For more information on the competition and artworks, visit portraitcompetition.si.edu. An exhibition catalog is available in the Museum Shop and online.