Born in Melbourne, Australia, Rebecca Driffield has lived and worked in Paris since 1986. She was awarded a grant to travel to Paris in 1986 from the Australia Council and received another generous grant the following year which enabled her to settle in Paris and paint full-time. In 1988, she received a Special Mention at the Salon de la Jeune Peinture at the Grand Palais in Paris, and in which her work was selected for a solo exhibition within the Salon. This exhibition opened the doors to visibility and further exhibiting opportunities in France and elsewhere in Europe. In 1999, she received the 2nd Prize for the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in London. In 2004, she participated with 11 other artists in the BBC TV programme, Star Portraits. Rebecca Driffield has exhibited in various contemporary art fairs: ArtLondon (2007), ArtAthina (Athens, from 2007 to 2010), MacParis. In 2019, her portrait of the biographer Claire Tomalin was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in London and is now part of the permanent collection. The portrait is on view to the general public, and can be found in room 33 in the NPG. Rebecca Driffield’s work is in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery, the Tavistock Institute in London, the BBC, and the Institute of Psychoanalysis in London, as well as in numerous private collections in France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Australia, the United States, Cambodia and the United Kingdom.