Whilst studying at Oundle School, former pupil, Kitty Shepherd submitted artwork for an arts competition organised by the Headmasters’ & Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC). Her piece ‘Young Man’ was selected by Peter Monkton, winner of the BP Portrait Award in 2009, as the winner of the painting category.
The visual arts competition was organised to celebrate the imagination and creativity of pupils from HMC schools, with entries received from schools both in the UK and from around the world.
A representative from HMC commented: “It quickly became very apparent that the entries were so diverse that they could not be judged as one visual arts competition, and so we divided it into three categories – painting, sculpture and lens media.”
Kitty and head of art at Oundle, Jeremy Oddie, attended the 2014 HMC annual conference held at the Celtic Manor Resort, near Newport, South Wales on Wednesday 1 October. During a mini eisteddfod where her work was on display alongside other winners, Kitty was presented with a certificate.
Jeremy Oddie said: “We were extremely pleased to hear that Kitty won the painting section of the competition and was invited to attend the presentation ceremony at the HMC. All the competition winners had their work displayed on a large screen, which also included sculpture, video clips and poetry readings. Gillian Clarke, the national poet of Wales, spoke to the conference and also recited a selection of her work. The finale to the evening was a choir of headmasters and headmistresses singing to a bemused audience!”
