Blog

Star Wars and the National Portrait Gallery

The Gallery has worked with Disney+ on a special display, which we hope will introduce new audiences to our Collection. The display at The Unit in the West End marks the launch of the second season of Lucasfilm’s The Mandalorian and will include images from the Gallery’s Collection and a painting entitled ‘The Mandalorian and the Child’…

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29 October 2020

• New Additions

In Conversation with Chaz Guest

American artist Chaz Guest recently caught up with our Senior Contemporary Curator Sarah Howgate.…

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22 October 2020

• New Additions

Looking to the Collection: Activists and Activism
By Sophie Williams

For this year’s UK Black History Month, in a time in which we’ve seen the focus of the world turned towards racial justice and activism in a way that we’ve never quite seen before, I was invited by the National Portrait Gallery to cast an eye on the activists in their Collection, and to highlight some of the stories and lives of the sitters that I think we can learn from today as we fight for racial equality for all. …

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15 October 2020

Rediscovering Black Portraiture

Recently we caught up with opera singer, BBC broadcaster and mastermind behind the Rediscovering Black Portraiture project, Peter Brathwaite.…

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14 July 2020

An interview with Zadie Smith and Toyin Ojih Odutola by Katy Hessel

Zadie Smith and Toyin Ojih Odutola’s works have not only had a profound effect on the world at large, but on each other. To mark the unveiling of the Gallery’s latest commission, Sadie by Toyin Ojih Odutola, Katy Hessel, art historian and founder of @thegreatwomenartists spoke to both of them about capturing, and being captured. Friends, admirers and followers of each others’ work, we celebrate one of the greatest living artists portraying one of the greatest living writers.…

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06 July 2020

Lockdown, portraiture and Captain Tom: In Conversation with Adam Salisbury

Some truly inspiring stories have come out of the coronavirus pandemic, none more so than Captain Tom Moore, a British Army veteran who completed 100 laps of his garden for his 100th birthday, raising over £30 million for the NHS. We sat down with artist Adam Salisbury, who painted this portrait of Captain Tom, to find out about his inspiration, process, and the reaction he’s received. …

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26 June 2020