Peter Edwards (artist)

Peter Edwards, (born 20 November 1955), is a British painter. He won the 1994 BP Portrait Award.

Early career
In 1980 he exhibited a small self-portrait in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. The painting was bought by the art collector, Sir Brinsley Ford. In 1986 his portrait of The Liverpool Poets was purchased by the National Portrait Gallery. His continuing involvement with the gallery and Robin Gibson then 20th Century Curator (later Chief Curator) led to a major one-man exhibition and tour in the Gallery in April 1990 "Contemporary Poets", which consisted of 17 large canvasses of 20 poets, alongside a poem from each poet, numerous studies, and a series of Saturday morning readings from Seamus Heaney, Douglas Dunn, Charles Causley, Wendy Cope, and Craig Raine.

On 30 July 1991, Bobby Moore unveiled Edwards' portrait of Bobby Charlton in the National Portrait Gallery, Sponsored by British Gas plc, it marked the 25th anniversary of England winning the FIFA World Cup. He later painted Ryan Giggs for the National Library of Wales.

In 1993 he exhibited in The Portrait Now show. In 1994 he won the BP Portrait Award with Portrait of an Artist's Model (of Marguerite Kelsey). She had been the model of choice, in the inter-war years, for many leading artists, including Meredith Frampton. This award led to his commission to paint Kazuo Ishiguro, which was unveiled the following summer in the National Portrait Gallery by Ismail Merchant.

Public collections

 * National Portrait Gallery, London. 6 works. The portraits are of: Adrian Henri, Roger McGough, Brian Patten, (triple portrait known as) The Liverpool Poets. Seamus Heaney, John Heath-Stubbs, Willy Russell, Sir Bobby Charlton, and Kazuo Ishiguro.
 * The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York of the British Poet Peter Reading, and Armenian poet Vahé Oshagan.
 * National Museum Wales, painting of Tyrone O'Sullivan.
 * Ulster Museum, Belfast, painting of Michael Longley.
 * National Library of Wales, 6 works
 * St Andrews University, portrait of Principal Struther Arnott
 * Birmingham University
 * Warwick University, painting of Sir Christopher Zeeman
 * Ferens Gallery, Hull
 * National Museums Liverpool portrait of Willy Russell
 * Williamson Art Gallery, Birkenhead
 * Moma Wales, Sir Kyffyn Williams, Ruth Lambert
 * St Georges hospital, London
 * Sheffield University Portraits of Sir Peter Middleton and Sir Harry Kroto
 * Manchester University portraits of Sir Martin Harris and Alan Gilbert