60 of South Africa’s best portraits go on show at HUB

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Cape Town’s HUB Gallery is hosting a 2 month-long exhibition of 60 outstanding portraits selected from the Portrait 100 Award 2025 finalists. The show opens 30 August and runs until 29 October 2025, giving audiences the opportunity to experience a diverse range of contemporary portraiture.

The prestigious Portrait Award is a biennial national competition presented by Rust-en-Vrede Gallery in Durbanville. Launched in 2013, it has grown to become one of South Africa’s most significant platforms for representational art – art that portrays recognisable objects, figures or scenes from the real world – celebrating technical excellence, narrative depth and emotional power in the medium of portraiture.

The 100 best portraits are selected from the entries received, from which the Top 40, Top 5, Top 3 and overall winning portraits are chosen. The Top 40 portraits will be exhibited at Rust-en-Vrede Gallery, while HUB Gallery will support the Portrait 100 Award exhibition by presenting the remaining 60 works. All are for sale to the public.

This year’s finalists were chosen by a panel of respected industry experts: Dr Dineke Orton, art historian, researcher and the curator of the University of Johannesburg Art Gallery; artist and entrepreneur Thonton Kubeya; and journalist, art critic and editor Sean O’Toole. The blind adjudication process ensured that works were judged purely on artistic merit, free from bias or name recognition.

Says HUB Gallery and Spier Arts Trust CEO Mirna Wessels, ‘For the second consecutive year, we are supporting the national Portrait Award. Portrait 100 is a significant platform that celebrates the strength and variety of South African contemporary portraiture, while giving art lovers an opportunity to engage with fresh talent and acquire these works.’

The exhibition opens with a private viewing on 30 August, followed by a month-long public run at HUB Gallery, which is located at historic Union House, 25 Commercial Street, Cape Town.

For more information on HUB visit https://houseunionblock.co.za/

For more information on the Portrait Award 2025, please see: https://rust-en-vrede.com/portrait-awards/