Mary Woods’ portrait, ‘Generation Game’.FROM hundreds of entries, the shortlists for this year’s AIB Portrait Prize and AIB Young Portrait Prize have been announced by the National Gallery of Ireland and Mary Woods, an artist from Rathmore, has been shortlisted for the AIB Portrait Prize alongside 25 other artists from across the country with her piece in acrylic on canvas, titled Generation Game.
The AIB Portrait Prize shortlist includes paintings, video, pastel, mixed media and photography by artists from across the country.
The winner of the AIB Portrait Prize will receive a cash prize of €15,000 and will be commissioned to create a work for the National Portrait Collection, for which they will be awarded a further €5,000.
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Two additional awards of €1,500 will be given to highly commended works. Judges for the AIB Portrait Prize 2026 are Dr Brian Fay, artist and lecturer at TU Dublin; Christina Kennedy, Senior Curator, Head of Collections at the Irish Museum of Modern Art; and Dr Joseph McBrinn, Art Historian and Lecturer at Belfast School of Art.
The exhibition of the shortlisted portraits will be on display in the Portrait Gallery (Room 23) at the National Gallery of Ireland from 14 November 2026 – 14 March 2027.
The winners of the Prizes will be announced at a ceremony held in the National Gallery of Ireland on December 2.
