Portrait of Lydia Foy by Amanda Dunsmore wins National Gallery’s AIB Portrait Prize

A portrait of transgender rights activist Dr Lydia Foy by Amanda Dunsmore has won the National Gallery of Ireland’s AIB Portrait Prize.
Dunsmore was among 26 shortlisted artists from the island of Ireland working across a variety of media, including painting, drawing, sculpture, video and photography, whose art is currently on display in the gallery.
On the award-winning work, a video portrait entitled ‘Lydia‘ of Dr Lydia Foy, Ms Dunsmore said: “In 1993, Dr Lydia Foy applied to Ireland’s Office of the Registrar General for a new birth certificate to reflect her gender. She was refused. Dr Foy undertook an arduous 22-year legal battle with the Irish State. Ireland’s Gender Recognition Act was passed on July 15th, 2015 and Lydia became the first person to be legally recognised by this Act.”
“Lydia is also in the Guinness World Records for growing the tallest foxglove, 3.29 metres, and her portrait was filmed in her garden,” Dunsmore added.
The winner of the annual competition receives €15,000 in cash and will be commissioned to create a work for the national portrait collection, for which they will be awarded a further €5,000.
There will also be two other awards of €1,500 for Arann McCormack and Emily Mc Gardle, whose entries were highly commended. The panel of judges for this year’s prize included Hughie O’Donoghue, Emer McGarry and Simon O’Connor.
Sixteen year old Aoibhe Devereux was also announced as the overall winner of the AIB Young Portrait Prize, for her acrylic painting Tumtha (Immersed).
Devereux said: “This is a portrait of my youngest brother on holidays. I wanted to immortalise this moment of him in the pool with the rainbows dancing on his skin, to capture his joy and youthfulness.”
“It’s my favourite picture of him because it really shows who he is, a boy who has fun everywhere especially tumtha (immersed) underwater,” she added.
The shortlist for this year’s young portrait prize featured 20 artists between three and 18 years old and the young artists’ portraits were judged by a panel including Emmalene Blake, Askwin Chacko and Sheena Barrett. Allanah McDonald Brown (5), Conor Mooney (11), Zihan He (15) and Julia Kardas (18) were announced as the category winners.
Devereux received a €500 cash prize and a box of art materials, while the category winners were each awarded their own box of supplies and €250.
All 46 shortlisted entries across both prizes will remain on exhibit in the gallery until March 9th, 2025.