The Outwin 2025: American Portraiture Today
The Outwin 2025: American Portraiture Today presents contemporary portraiture by finalists in the seventh Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. The exhibition brings together 34 portraits by 35 artists working in painting, photography, sculpture, and immersive or time-based media. The artists were selected from more than 3,300 anonymous submissions by artists based in 12 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.
The exhibition explores a wide range of approaches to representing people and lived experience. Featured works include a two-channel video installation built from declassified police surveillance footage, a photograph about a Maryland resident falsely arrested after facial-recognition software misidentified him, and a painting depicting an artist and one of his lifelong friends. Visitors could vote in person or online for the People’s Choice Award through April 5, 2026.
When: January 24–August 30, 2026
Venue: National Portrait Gallery, second floor, North Galleries
Tickets: Price not available
Featured artists: Kameron Neal, Jared Soares, David Antonio Cruz, Gloriann Sacha Antonetty-Lebrón, Juan Pablo Vizcaíno, and other finalists from the 2025 competition
Prizewinners: Kameron Neal won first prize for “Down the Barrel (of a Lens)” and receives $25,000 plus a commission to create a portrait of a living individual for the museum’s permanent collection. Jared Soares won second prize for “Misidentified by Artificial Intelligence: Alonzo and Carronne” and receives $10,000. David Antonio Cruz won third prize for “isaiditoncebefore,butnowIfeelitevenmore_feelin’pretty,pretty,pretty” and receives $7,500.
People’s Choice Award: Gloriann Sacha Antonetty-Lebrón and Juan Pablo Vizcaíno, for “Hebras y Vejigantes”
Featured works: Neal’s “Down the Barrel (of a Lens)” is a sound-bearing, two-screen video installation drawing on his residency with New York City’s Department of Records and presenting surveillance footage recorded by the New York Police Department from 1960 to 1980. Soares’s “Misidentified by Artificial Intelligence: Alonzo and Carronne” portrays a Maryland resident who was wrongly accused and arrested after facial-recognition technology produced a false match. Cruz’s oil and Flashe painting comes from his “chosenfamilies” series and depicts Cruz with his longtime friend Archel.
Media: Painting, photography, sculpture, and immersive or time-based media installations
Featured media duration: “Down the Barrel (of a Lens)” runs 25 minutes and 25 seconds
Audience voting: Voting for the favorite artwork was available in the galleries and online from the exhibition opening through April 5, 2026
Competition: The triennial competition accepts one portrait made within the previous three years from artists age 18 and older who live and work in the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, or the U.S. Virgin Islands
Curators: Taína Caragol, the competition’s director and the Portrait Gallery’s senior curator of painting and sculpture, and Charlotte Ickes, the Portrait Gallery’s curator of time-based media art and special projects
Jurors: Carla Acevedo-Yates, Huey Copeland, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Daniel Lind-Ramos, Taína Caragol, Charlotte Ickes, and Rhea L. Combs
Support: Made possible by the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition Endowment, founded by longtime National Portrait Gallery docent Virginia Outwin Boochever and maintained by her family