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Exhibitions posts

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)

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27 March 2013

Exhibitions

Coco Chanel, 1935 by Man Ray Museum Ludwig Cologne, Photography Collections (Collection Gruber) © Man Ray Trust / ADAGP © Copy Photograph Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln

Man Ray Portraits: the art of dressing for the camera

I’m leading a tour of the Man Ray Portraits exhibition on 16 May themed around all things sartorial. Of course, Man Ray is the creator of iconic portraits of two of the best known designers of the twentieth century: Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli, both of which feature in the exhibition. And Man Ray worked within the industry himself for a number of years, contributing his innovative Surrealist fashion photographs to magazines including Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and the lesser known Charm, as Curator Terence Pepper discusses in the exhibition catalogue. More fundamentally however, details of dress are revealed throughout the exhibition to be instrumental in creating the arresting style of photographic portraiture that Man Ray is celebrated for.…

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

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20 March 2013

Front cover of Vu, Issue No. 144 (17 December 1930) Private Collection

Man Ray Portraits in print – continuing research and dialogue

One of the many challenges in assembling a major exhibition on such a well-known photographer and artist as Man Ray was how best to share new research and balance the introduction of great, but lesser known works, together with great prints of his most iconic works. Similarly his published work in magazines of the 1920s and 1930s such as Vanity Fair, Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar has been examined but I was fascinated to find that no survey to date had looked at in depth as his work published in the great French news weekly VU magazine. What was most exciting was that copies of Vu were still available for purchase in specialised book shops in Paris or through French ebay. Some of these have found their way into the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition showcases and the accompanying catalogue.…

By Terence Pepper, Curator of Photographs