About Us

The Portrait Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation and seeks funding to award these prizes from individuals and corporations, who wish to be associated with the next generation.

Child’s portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus, Portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus 2021

The Portrait Foundation

Established in 2019 by world famous portrait artist Basia Hamilton, the Portrait Foundation is dedicated to unleashing the creative talent of children. This is achieved through art, working with schools across the world. The Portrait Foundation runs extensive programmes and competitions to engage children in painting.

The key programme is a range of events where children are tutored to paint a portrait of their mother. Mothers are the unsung heroes of humanity, and are goddesses in their children’s eyes. To capture that key developmental stage, having children from five to sixteen years of age painting portraits of their mothers is incredibly illuminating and engaging.

The results are many different views using different media and these are then ‘judged’, with prizes awarded to encourage the children to continue their development of creativity. Prizes include art sets with paints, bicycles, tablet computers (iPads) and more.

The Portrait Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation and seeks funding to award these prizes from individuals and corporations, who wish to be associated with the next generation.

If you are interested in supporting the Portrait Foundation, please email us for further information. Equally, if you are a school governor or teacher and want to engage with the Portrait Foundation’s programmes, please also make contact.

Yours faithfullyBasia Hamilton and Chris SkinnerCo-founders of the Portrait Foundation

“Mothers are the unsung heroes of humanity, and are goddesses in their children’s eyes.”

Basia Hamilton and Chris Skinner, Co-founders

The people behind the Foundation

Basia Kaczmarowska Hamilton

Co-founder

Barbara Kaczmarowska-Hamilton, known as Basia Hamilton was born in Sopot, Poland. She graduated from the Academy of Art in Gdansk and then continued her studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice and Rome. The artist became internationally famous thanks to her great skill in the art of portraiture. She specialises in portraits in oil and pastels.

Regarded by many as the “Ambassador of Poland in the West”, she is listed among the 50 citizens of Polish ethnic background, who made a significant impact on the life and history of the British Isles, among General Anders, Joseph Conrad, King Canute and Roman Polanski.

Her sitters include: His Holiness Pope John Paul II, H.M. Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, H.R.H. Princess Royal, H.R.H. The Duke of Kent, H.R.H. Prince Michael of Kent, Lech Walesa, H.R.H. The Maharaja of Jodhpur, H.R.H. Duke of Braganza, Princess Tatiana Metternich, Margaux Hemingway, Alberto Moravia, Giorgio de Chirico, Buzz Aldrin, and many others who all together constitute “the Hall of Fame” in her gallery.

In 1994, the Polish President and the Nobel Prize Winner Lech Walesa awarded Basia Hamilton with the Order of Merit – “in recognition of her precious contribution to the spreading of Polish culture and art”.

She lives in Berkshire, UK, with her husband Ian and their sons Felix and Maximilian, and divides her working time between her studio in London, and travelling world-wide.

www.basiahamilton.com

Chris Skinner

Co-founder

Chris Skinner is known as an independent commentator on the financial markets and fintech through his blog, the Finanser.com, as author of the bestselling books Digital Bank, ValueWeb and its new sequel Digital Human. He is Chair of the European networking forum Nordic Future Innovation, as well as being a Non-Executive Director of the Fintech consultancy firm 11:FS.