She Was a Reader’s Choice Award Finalist So Many Times It Felt Like Winning. This Year, Lydia Harsany Host Actually Won.

Mobile artist Lydia Harsany Host has won the 2026 Reader’s Choice Award for Best Portrait Artist, capping off years as a repeat finalist for the honor. “I’ve been nominated a lot of times and felt like being a finalist was like winning for me because I’m not hustling as hard as other artists,” Host said.

Host has taught art at Bishop State Community College in Mobile for 15 years and currently serves as president of the Watercolor and Graphic Arts Society of Mobile. After college, she worked across oil, watercolor and clay before moving into teaching workshops, crediting mentorship from Mary Elizabeth Kimbrough at Bishop State for shaping her approach to both art and instruction.

“I always have enjoyed drawing people. I’m good at getting a likeness,” Host said of her specialty. Beyond her studio classes, she also teaches art appreciation, with a particular focus on connecting students with art during their first real exposure to it — work she frames as building a bridge across cultural and social divisions. She recalled one especially meaningful milestone earlier in her career: winning “Best in Show for a spring show at the Mobile Public Library, the one on Grelot Road.”

Host views art as fundamentally about human connection, a philosophy that runs through both her portrait work and her long teaching career at Bishop State. Her Reader’s Choice Award win this year formalizes recognition that, by her own account, years of finalist nods had already made feel earned.

About Bishop State

Bishop State Community College was founded in 1927 as the Mobile branch of Alabama State College in Montgomery. One of Alabama’s historically Black colleges, it is now part of the Alabama Community College System.