On Thursday the 14th May, a group of Bruton Art Society members took up the invitation from Anthony Connolly PRP to attend his President’s Tour of this year’s Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London.

Anthony, who is also a Patron of Bruton Art Society, gave us a very special two hours of his time, picking out portraits from the exhibition chosen specifically to give us more ‘in depth’ insight into the artists and their work. 

He told us that this year there were about three thousand entries both national and international and that this had to be paired down to just three hundred which he admitted was a very tough decision for the selection panel to make, considering the quantity and quality of the submissions.

To  coincide with the Chinese Year of the Fire Horse, the RSPP welcomed Shengxinyu Art, its director, Zhang Hongbin and twenty four Chinese artists as guest exhibitors to this year’s exhibition, which prompted very interesting talking points on comparative style and application. To quote Anthony ‘The Society has a history of reaching out beyond these shores to outstanding artists, but never before have we extended that welcome as far as China.’

We had an amazing and very exciting afternoon and are all very grateful to Anthony for giving us this opportunity once again. 

Sally Ridout – BAS Workshops and Lectures