Peter Edwards, (born 20 November 1955), is a British painter. He won the 1994 BP Portrait Award.
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.[1]
In 1986 his portrait of The Liverpool Poets was purchased by the National Portrait Gallery. His continuing involvement with the gallery and Robin Gibson[2] 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.[3]
On 30 July 1991, Bobby Moore unveiled Edwards' portrait of Bobby Charlton[4] in the National Portrait Gallery, Sponsored by British Gas plc, it marked the 25th anniversary of England winning the FIFA World Cup.[5] 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[6] with Portrait of an Artist's Model (of Marguerite Kelsey).[7] She had been the model of choice, in the inter-war years, for many leading artists, including Meredith Frampton.[8] This award led to his commission to paint Kazuo Ishiguro, which was unveiled the following summer in the National Portrait Gallery by Ismail Merchant.