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The Gallery holds the most extensive collection of portraits in the world. Search over 215,000 works, 150,000 of which are illustrated from the 16th Century to the present day.

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Creative Connections Private View, © photograph Jorge Herrera

Exploring Connections in East London

Creative Connections is a four-year project connecting young people with contemporary artists to create new responses inspired by the Gallery’s Collection. Lead artist, Lucy Steggals shares some of her thoughts from project at the end of this first year where she has worked in the London borough of Tower Hamlets with students from St Paul’s Way Trust school: …

By Lucy Steggals, lead artist, Creative Connections Year One

24 July 2013

Bust and plinth reunited

Anna Jameson’s Plinth

In September 2010 I received an interesting message from the Gallery’s Collections Services Manager, Penny Hughes. During an audit of the Gallery’s store, the original plinth belonging to the Gallery’s marble bust of the writer, art historian and advocate of women’s rights Anna Brownell Jameson had been discovered. The bust, by the famous Victorian sculptor John Gibson, had been on display on a modern plinth at the Gallery’s regional partner in north Wales, Bodelwyddan Castle, since 1989. Should the plinth, which was in poor condition, simply remain in store? Or should it be conserved and reunited with Mrs Jameson’s bust?…

By Peter Funnell, Head of Research and Senior Curator

17 July 2013

Beulah No.2, late 1930s, Ronnie and Anne Linton. Image: courtesy of Bonhams.

Searching for Knight’s Gypsy sitters

In February, I spent a fascinating morning with the residents of a Gypsy and Traveller’s site in Buckinghamshire. The visit was part of my quest to find out more about Laura Knight’s portraits in preparation for the Gallery’s forthcoming exhibition. In the late 1930s, Knight made a remarkable series of paintings of English Gypsies, but very little is known about the individuals depicted. Given that they posed within living memory, I felt certain that the sitters would have descendents who might help us learn more about these portraits and their subjects.…

By Rosie Broadley, Collections Curator 19th Century (and interim Collections Curator 20th Century)

03 July 2013