A painting of an artist’s dead 100-year-old mother won Britain’s leading prize for portraiture last night.
To make Last Portrait of Mother, Daphne Todd spent three days in an undertaker’s with the body of Annie Mary Todd until it started to turn “a bit green”.
She said that the experience helped her to accept her mother’s death and the portrait was not initially intended to be exhibited. However, by the time that Todd, 63, was looking for a suitable work for the 2010 BP Portrait Award, the startled reaction of one friend who saw it persuaded her that it might be the sort of image that could stand out.
Before last night’s ceremony, Todd was convinced that she wouldn’t win and imagined that she was only nominated as the “statutory wrinkly”. Instead, she beat Michael Gaskell, 46, with Harry, and David Eichenberg, 38, with Tim II into second and third place.
Sandy Nairne, director of the National Portrait Gallery and chairman of the judging panel, said: “We have never seen a portrait quite like this before.” He called it a record of a “very extraordinary moment, a devotional study, an incredibly powerful portrait ... In lesser hands, it would not have worked. Just being exceptional subject matter is not enough to win — it has got to be the combination of skill, imagination and the relationship between the subject and artist.”
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In the case of Todd and her mother, that was a relationship that became more intense when Annie Mary attempted suicide at the age of 85. She had been a widow for a long time and was suffering with a muscle-affecting condition. Before she died, Annie Mary told Todd that she “didn’t care” if she painted her after her death. But Todd believes “she wouldn’t have liked the painting”. Nor does her brother, who will not talk to her again. Todd does not regret painting it, however. “In the past people got used to death because they would lay out the body in the parlour and keep vigil. We don’t do any of that now. It’s all tidied away.”
She saw her win as a rare victory for her traditional technique of painting solely from direct observation rather than using photographs — a process she feels is “much more exciting because it’s a physical, visceral experience”.
An exhibition of 58 works opens at the National Portrait Gallery tomorrow.