T.S. Eliot

Sitterback to top

• Thomas Stearns ('T.S.') Eliot (1888-1965), Poet. Sitter in 66 portraits.

Artistback to top

• Patrick Heron (1920-1999), Painter and art critic. Artist of 5 portraits, Sitter in 11 portraits.

This portraitback to top

Painted the year after Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, this portrait is a happy collaboration between two of the leading contemporary theoreticians and practitioners of poetry and painting. Both held radical positions, both were concerned with ideas in the abstract, and both were immensely influential. In 1972, in the introduction to his retrospective at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, Heron said that colour had become his 'most persistent concern. It is the interaction of colours, the "meeting lines" or "frontiers" between colours which are crucial.'

Linked publicationsback to top

• Audio Guide
• Cooper, John, Visitor's Guide, 2000, p. 97
• Cooper, John, A Guide to the National Portrait Gallery, 2009, p. 54
• Gibson, Robin, Treasures from the National Portrait Gallery, 1996, p. 115
• Gibson, Robin, 20th Century Portraits, 1978 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 9 June - 17 September 1978), p. 50
• Gibson, Robin; Clerk, Honor, 20th Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery Collection, 1993, p. 19
• Saumarez Smith, Charles, The National Portrait Gallery: An Illustrated Guide, 2000, p. 203
• Saumarez Smith, Charles, The National Portrait Gallery, 1997, p. 203
• Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 199

Subjects & Themesback to top

• Highlights tour
• On display at the Gallery