Royal Society of Portrait Painters | Annual Exhibition 2026
The Royal Society of Portrait Painters invites you to the RP Annual Exhibition 2026.
Promoting artistic excellence in portraiture, this annual exhibition is the leading portrait painting showcase in the country. Alongside members of the Society, emerging and established artists – both national and international – present a great breadth of approaches to portraiture.
Expect intimate moments from daily life, as well as high-profile commissions of public figures.
- Saied Dai RP, Night Song
- James Hague RP, Woman with Plant
- Jonathan Chan, Kehinde
Royal Society of Portrait Painters x Shengxinyu Art
To coincide with the Chinese Year of the Fire Horse, the Society welcomes Shengxinyu Art, its director, Zhang Hongbin and twenty-four Chinese artists as guest exhibitors to this year's annual exhibition. 'I am confident that this collaboration will bring something extraordinary to the exhibition,' says President Anthony Connolly. '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.'
Special Events
A series of special events will accompany the exhibition, including a talk by art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon on Portraits of Women, Portrayals of Virtue: A new way of understanding Vermeer’s depiction of women.