The Practice of Portraiture
Suggestions and investigations for Secondary School Art Teachers based on the National Portrait Gallery collection

Liz Rideal
Art Education Officer NPG

In this part of the website we are going to consider different media and approaches to making portraits of a selection of people, for a variety of reasons. The images range from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. There is background information about the work and the sitter, each image can be viewed on the web, cut and copied from there, but is also available in better quality print form, from our shop. In addition to this the Woodward Portrait Explorer on CD Rom, is an interactive catalogue of the Gallery's Primary Collection of 10,000 portraits.

Together with the portraits, a list of accompanying questions are designed to provoke discussion about each image, and two suggestions for practical art projects which can be done in connection with the individual works. Portrait projects suggested are conceived with demands of Key Stage 3 and G.C.S.E. in mind, but the approach is designed to welcome all levels of debate around the diverse chronological selection.

The National Portrait Gallery was founded in 1856, and the intention was that it should provide a source of inspiration for contemporary portraitists to "soar above the mere attempt at producing a likeness, and to give that higher tone which was essential to maintain the true dignity of portrait painting as an art. " It was to be an example to future generations. During a debate about the gallery in the House of Lords, Lord Palmerston declared - "There cannot , I feel convinced, be a greater incentive to mental exertion, to noble actions, to good conduct on the part of the living, than to see before them the features of those who have done things worthy of our admiration, and those whose example we are more induced to imitate when they are brought before us in the visible and tangible shape of portraits."

Go to a large print, text-only version of this site

All images and text are subject to copyright protection. 20 November 2008