Portrait Artist of the Year: Story, Cast and Series Facts

Story and premise

Portrait Artist of the Year is hosted by UK TV personalities Joan Bakewell and Frank Skinner; an esteemed group of judges travel across the Europe in search of a new star in the art world. Each episode features a regional competition where artists are shortlisted and challenged to produce a portrait of one of three famous sitters. At the end of each round, the judges select an artist to go to the semifinal. The finalists will have their work displayed at the world-famous National Portrait Gallery in London and the winner will receive a £10,000 commission to paint a portrait which will become part of the permanent collection at the British Library.

Series details

• Title: Portrait Artist of the Year
• Format: Reality
• Language: English
• Premiere date: 2013-11-05
• Status in TVmaze: Running
• Network listed by TVmaze: Sky Arts
• Network country: United Kingdom
• Typical episode runtime: 60 minutes
• TVmaze community rating: 8/10
• TVMaze ID: 6310
• IMDb ID: tt4445396
• TVDB ID: 301814

Cast and credited roles

• Kathleen Soriano — Judge
• Kate Bryan — Judge
• Tai Shan Schierenberg — Judge
• Joan Bakewell — Host
• Stephen Mangan — Host
• Frank Skinner — Host

Seasons in the TVmaze catalogue

• Season 1: premiered 2013-11-05; final listed air date 2014-02-25; episode order: 6.
• Season 2: premiered 2014-11-04; final listed air date 2014-12-30; episode order: 9.
• Season 3: premiered 2017-01-24; final listed air date 2017-03-14; episode order: 9.
• Season 4: premiered 2018-01-16; final listed air date 2018-12-18; episode order: 11.
• Season 5: premiered 2019-02-12; final listed air date 2019-04-16; episode order: 11.
• Season 6: premiered 2020-01-21; final listed air date 2020-03-31.
• Season 7: premiered 2020-10-14; final listed air date 2020-12-16; episode order: 11.
• Season 8: premiered 2021-10-13; final listed air date 2021-12-22.
• Season 9: premiered 2022-04-13; final listed air date 2022-12-21.
• Season 10: premiered 2023-06-21; final listed air date 2023-12-13; episode order: 11.
• Season 11: premiered 2024-10-09; final listed air date 2024-12-18.
• Season 12: premiered 2025-10-01; final listed air date 2025-12-10.

Source and licence

Adapted from Portrait Artist of the Year on TVmaze. The synopsis is reproduced as plain text; catalogue facts, cast and season records are selected and reformatted. This adapted text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, following the TVmaze API licence. Network and web-channel credits identify the service listed in this source; they do not establish current streaming availability.