Welcome to the National Portrait Gallery Press Office
The Gallery's Press Office handles enquiries from national and
international media. This service enables you to access press releases and download high-resolution images to accompany your stories.
Use of images and department contacts
The Press Office supplies images that are directly promotional to the Gallery's exhibitions, displays and public programme. If you are looking for an image from the Gallery's Collection to accompany a story that is not directly
promotional to the Gallery, you will need to contact the National Portrait Gallery's Picture Library on: picturelibrary@npg.org.uk.
For all Press Office enquiries please contact:
Neil Evans, Senior Press Officer, Tel 020 7312 2452 or email nevans@npg.org.uk, Eleanor Macnair, Press Officer, Tel 020 7321 6620 or email emacnair@npg.org.uk, or Helen Corcoran,
Communications Assistant, Tel 020 7321 6610 or email hcorcoran@npg.org.uk
Register to download images from the Press Office
In order to access press images you need to register your details with us. You will then be able to download images.
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Current Exhibitions and Displays | News | Forthcoming Exhibitions and Displays | Exhibition Archive | News Archive
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CONTEMPORARY CONNECTIONS: THE SINGH TWINS (11 Mar 2010 - 20 Jun 2010)
Read press release | View images Work by The Singh Twins will be on display at the National Portrait Gallery for the first time in March. The twin sisters are contemporary British artists whose award-winning paintings explore issues of social, political, religious and multicultural debate. The display will offer a contemporary response to the concurrent exhibition, The Indian Portrait 1560-1860, and The Singh Twins have created a new Gallery trail to draw links between their work, The Indian Portrait 1560-1860, and the Gallery’s permanent Collection. |
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THE INDIAN PORTRAIT 1560–1860 (11 Mar 2010 - 20 Jun 2010)
Read press release | View images The first ever exhibition devoted to Indian portraits - 60 outstanding portraits drawn from collections in the UK, USA and Europe. An important exhibition telling the story of the Indian portrait over three centuries, The Indian Portrait 1560-1860 will open at the National Portrait Gallery on 11 March 2010. Bringing together 60 works from international public and private collections, The Indian Portrait will celebrate the beauty, power and humanity of these works of art.
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IRVING PENN PORTRAITS (18 Feb 2010 - 6 Jun 2010)
Read press release This major photographic exhibition, Irving Penn Portraits, is devoted to one of the greatest photographers of his generation, who died in October 2009. The exhibition includes over 120 prints from Penn’s seven-decade career, ranging from his early portraits for Vogue in 1944 to some of his last work.
The exhibition is a survey of Penn’s portraits of major cultural figures brought together from many international collections. Portraits include Truman Capote, Salvador Dalì, Marlene Dietrich, Christian Dior, T.S. Eliot, Duke Ellington, Alfred Hitchcock, Nicole Kidman, Willem de Kooning, Jessye Norman, Rudolf Nureyev, Edith Piaf, Pablo Picasso, Harold Pinter, Igor Stravinsky, and Tennessee Williams.
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FORMAT PHOTOGRAPHY AGENCY 1983-2003 (21 Jan 2010 - 11 Jul 2010)
Read press release | View images A new photographic display will celebrate the work of Format Photography Agency, the only solely female agency in British photographic history. The seventeen portraits on display will reflect the scope and achievement of this agency and this will be the first display devoted to Format at the National Portrait Gallery.
Format was established in1983 by eight founding members: Anita Corbin, Sheila Gray, Pam Isherwood, Jenny Mathews, Maggie Murray, Joanne O’Brien, Raissa Page and Val Wilmer. During its history the agency represented twenty leading women photographers. Portraits by photographers Melanie Friend, Roshini Kempadoo, Joanne O’Brien, Brenda Prince and some of the founders will be included in this display.
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LADY JANE GREY (19 Dec 2009 - 11 Jul 2010)
Read press release | View images Lady Jane Grey was nominal Queen of England for just nine days in 1553 as part of an unsuccessful bid to prevent the accession of the Catholic Mary Tudor. This new display charts the posthumous iconography of Lady Jane Grey and explores how works in print promoted her as an archetypal Protestant heroine and martyr. |
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JANE BOWN (1 Dec 2009 - 5 Apr 2010)
Read press release | View images A new display of fifteen photographs will celebrate the 60th anniversary of Jane Bown’s relationship with The Observer and the publication of her new book, Exposures. Illustrating the longevity and scope of Bown’s career, the photographic portraits on display will range from her portrait of Bertrand Russell, her first to be published in The Observer in January 1949, to her iconic study of Samuel Beckett (1976) and her recent commission of Her Majesty The Queen taken in 2006. |
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TWIGGY: A LIFE IN PHOTOGRAPHS (19 Sep 2009 - 21 Mar 2010)
Read press release | View images A new display at the National Portrait Gallery will celebrate Twiggy’s 60th birthday and the publication of a new photographic biography of her life. One of the best-known and most respected models of all time Twiggy has worked with many of the world’s leading photographers and a selection of the most iconic and important of these portraits will be on show at the Gallery.
Twiggy says, ‘Over my career I’ve had the privilege of working with many great photographers. I’m very excited to see so many of these portraits coming together at the National Portrait Gallery and in my new book. It’s really interesting to see how fashion photography and portraiture have evolved throughout my career. I hope that this display and book will give people the opportunity to see these pictures that have captured definitive moments in my career. ‘
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JOHN GIBBONS: PORTRAITS (12 Sep 2009 - 14 Mar 2010)
Read press release | View images The first display of portraits by the sculptor John Gibbons has opened at the National Portrait Gallery. It is the latest in the Gallery’s Interventions series focusing on twentieth-century artists who have developed innovatory approaches to portraiture.
This display, comprising dramatic works in welded steel, explores Gibbons’s treatment of the human head as a ‘container’ for experience, identity, personality and mind. A special wall-mounted installation has been constructed to showcase five powerful sculptures, dating from 1981 to the present, which transform industrial materials into enigmatic cage-like forms. Three of the sculptures appear to float high up on angled shelves built into the Gallery walls whilst two smaller ones are given a more intimate setting at a low level.
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