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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’…

By National Portrait Gallery,

29 October 2020

In Conversation with Chaz Guest

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

By National Portrait Gallery,

22 October 2020

La Fiamma: Keeping the Flame of Baroness Catherine d'Erlanger Alive

After celebrating the centenary of female suffrage in 2018, an increased number of female artists have appeared in the exhibitions schedules of several art museums. Behind the scenes, researchers are also doing their part to redress the gender imbalance in the art world by uncovering the lives and identities of women forgotten by history.…

By Hannah Marynissen, Intern

10 October 2019

Shaped with light: Silhouettes and photography on display and in the archives

Our recent display Photography: A Living Art – Then and Now, explored the relationship between historical and contemporary photographs from the National Portrait Gallery’s Collection. Recently acquired tintypes by Joni Sternbach and photograms by Adam Fuss and Christopher Bucklow are shown alongside seaside souvenir tintypes from the 1870s and portraits by the twentieth-century photographic masters André Kertész and Cecil Beaton.…

By Constantia Nicolaides, Assistant Curator, Photographs (Content and Interpretation)

23 September 2019

Jane Seymour

New acquisitions in the sixteenth-century collection are relatively infrequent, so I was thrilled when the opportunity to purchase a portrait of Jane Seymour arose. …

By Charlotte Bolland, Senior Curator, Research and 16th Century Collections

23 August 2019

Cindy Sherman

Sherman is famous for her use of make-up, costumes, props and prosthetics to create complex and ambiguous photographic images. She invents fictitious characters, photographing herself in imaginary situations, inhabiting a world of pure appearance.…

By National Portrait Gallery,

20 June 2019