WASHINGTON, DC.- The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery announces today that Margaret Bowland of Brooklyn, N.Y., has been awarded first prize for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2009 People’s Choice Award. A cash prize of $500 will be given to the artist. The Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition includes two different awards. The expert jury selected the 49 pieces featured in the exhibition and the seven prize winners. Visitors to the exhibition, both in the gallery and online, then cast votes for the People’s Choice Award, selecting their favorite of the exhibited works. Voting closed Jan. 18. Bowland’s work was also recognized by the expert jury as a commended entry. Her oil-on-linen work titled “Portrait of Kenyetta and Brianna” depicts three figures in white makeup dressed in the two traditions of bride and geisha. Bowland commented on her work for the wall label in the exhibition: “My girls be

WASHINGTON, DC.- The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery announces today that Margaret Bowland of Brooklyn, N.Y., has been awarded first prize for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2009 People’s Choice Award. A cash prize of $500 will be given to the artist. The Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition includes two different awards. The expert jury selected the 49 pieces featured in the exhibition and the seven prize winners. Visitors to the exhibition, both in the gallery and online, then cast votes for the People’s Choice Award, selecting their favorite of the exhibited works. Voting closed Jan. 18. Bowland’s work was also recognized by the expert jury as a commended entry. Her oil-on-linen work titled “Portrait of Kenyetta and Brianna” depicts three figures in white makeup dressed in the two traditions of bride and geisha. Bowland commented on her work for the wall label in the exhibition: “My girls be