National Portrait Gallery

My Favourite Portrait, by Dr Gus Casely-Hayford

This article is an extract from the exclusive Gallery Supporters’ magazine Face to Face. There is often a price paid for brilliance, and in this portrait of Dr Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds forces us to reflect on what the nature of that price might be.…

By Dr Gus Casely-Hayford, Art Historian

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22 May 2013

For Our Children by Edgar Heap of Birds Monoprint, 2013

How do we see each other?

The Gallery’s upcoming Late Shift Extra takes place on Friday 17 May and artist Edgar Heap of Birds responds to the Gallery’s free exhibition, George Catlin: American Indian Portraits, through the question ‘HOW DO WE SEE EACH OTHER?’…

By Claire Jackson, Marketing Assistant

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14 May 2013

Ramsay MacDonald by Sir Jacob Epstein, 1934, NPG 2934

Shocking sculptures?

It’s hard to believe it now, but for the first decades of his career, Jacob Epstein was the sculptor some people loved to hate. The genitals of the angel that he carved on the tomb of Oscar Wilde caused such a row that the sculpture was covered up with a tarpaulin while the naked woman in Rima, his memorial to W. H. Hudson, was attacked with green paint. As the sculptor Henry Moore said at Epstein’s funeral, Epstein ‘took the brickbats for modern art’. Epstein’s portrait busts didn’t provoke the same levels of outrage but I was surprised to learn that they were viewed with suspicion by many early critics. What was it about these lively sculptures that led one critic to compare them to a ‘mud-pie’? …

By Clare Barlow, Assistant Curator

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8 May 2013

Queen Alexandra by Alexander Bassano, 5 May 1881, NPG x137324

Bassano: The Man Himself

Does the name Bassano ring a bell? For many of our visitors, the answer is probably ‘yes’. It has appeared in countless National Portrait Gallery displays over the years, features on some of our most popular greetings cards, and often pops up when searching the collection on our website. This is unsurprising considering there are more than 40,000 original negatives of numerous sitters by ‘Bassano’ in our collection, plus more than 3,000 original prints.…

By Constantia Nicolaides, Photographs Cataloguer

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25 April 2013

A view from the art handlers: installing Susan Aldworth: The Portrait Anatomised

After months of desk work (or years in the case of larger exhibitions), the reward for curators comes at the moment when the artworks are finally installed in the space. With most Gallery displays and exhibitions, alterations to the way works are hung (minor or radical) can still happen at this moment; but, with others, the process of hanging can be quite technical. The skill of the art handlers is paramount to ensuring these installations run as planned.…

By Inga Fraser, Assistant Curator (Contemporary & 20th Century Collections)

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17 April 2013

Francis Bacon by Nicholas Hilliard, 1578 showing details of the lip and right eye

Miniatures: seeing in detail

What I love about portraiture, however artfully constructed an image might be, is the sense of encounter with another human being. This encounter has been heightened for me in working on new interpretation for our Tudor and Jacobean miniatures collection. Independent portrait miniatures are one of the most intimate forms of art, designed to be ‘viewed ... in hand near unto the eye’ (Nicholas Hilliard). Usually painted on the reverse of a playing card (Fig.1), they were often mounted within a jewelled case they could be worn, carried in a pocket or kept for private display within the home. …

By Jane Eade, Associate Curator (16th Century Collections)