Selected archive documents relating to 20th Century portraits

Henry James
by John Singer Sargent
1913
NPG 1767

Copy of article from The Times , dated 5 May 1914, reporting the attack on the portrait, then on display at the Royal Academy, by the suffragette Mary Wood.
Letter from the restorer to Milner, dated 6 December 1924, discussing the damage done to the portrait.

Letter from Lady Baden-Powell to C.K. Adams, director of the National Portrait Gallery, dated 4 April 1959, stating that she has no knowledge of the portrait.
Letter from Lady Baden-Powell to C.K. Adams, dated 13 April 1959, giving her opinion of the portrait.

T.E. Lawrence
by Augustus Edwin John
1919
NPG 3187

Letter from George Bernard Shaw to H.M. Hake, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, dated 15 July 1944, offering the portrait to the Gallery. Reproduced by kind permission of The Society of Authors, on behalf of the estate of G.Bernard Shaw.

General Officers of World War I
by John Singer Sargent
1922
NPG 1954

Letter from Sargent to Viscount Dillon, chairman of the National Portrait Gallery's trustees, dating 6 January 1919, accepting the commission.

Arthur Roberts
by Augustus Edwin John
1925
NPG 2362

Letter from Augustus John to Evan Charteris, dated 14 May 1929, giving his opinion of Roberts.

Sir Max Beerbohm
by Reginald Grenville Eves
1936
NPG 4000

Letter from Beerbohm to H.M. Hake, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, dated 3 December 1935, regarding the proposal to have Eves make a portrait of him.

Iris Murdoch
by Tom Phillips
1984-1986
NPG 5921

Letter from Tom Phillips to Robin Gibson, curator at the National Portrait Gallery, undated, describing how the portrait was made.

Tony Benn
by Humphrey Ocean (Humphrey Anthony Erdeswick Butler-Bowdon)
1996
NPG 6371

Letter from Humphrey Ocean to C.S. Smith, director of the National Portrait Gallery, dated 22 July 1996, giving an account of the sitter and the sittings.

Fax from Ross Wilson to C.S. Smith, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, dated 17 July 1993, regarding his commission to paint Derek Walcott.