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15 March - 28 May 2018
Tacita Dean: PORTRAIT
Tacita Dean: PORTRAIT is the first exhibition in the Gallery’s history to be devoted to the medium of film and reveals the artist’s own longstanding and personal interest in portraiture as a genre. The works on display include Dean’s 16 mm films of influential figures such as her major six-screen installation with Merce Cunningham in Merce Cunningham performs STILLNESS…(six performances, six films) (2008), alongside her film of Claes Oldenburg in Manhattan Mouse Museum (2011) and her film diptych of Julie Mehretu GDGDA (2011), all previously unseen in the UK, as well as Mario Merz (2002), Michael Hamburger (2007), Cy Twombly in Edwin Parker (2011), and David Hockney in Portraits (2016). Also on show for the first time in the UK will be two photographic works: GAETA (fifty photographs plus one)(2015) taken in the studio of Cy Twombly and The Line of Fate (2011) of the art historian Leo Steinberg. Dean has also made two new film works for the exhibition, Providence (2017), a portrait of David Warner with hummingbirds, and His Picture in Little (2017), a film in miniature also featuring Stephen Dillane and Ben Whishaw, made specifically for presentation within the Gallery’s permanent Collection.
This exhibition is part of an unprecedented collaboration with the Royal Academy of Arts : LANDSCAPE and the National Gallery: STILL LIFE. The three exhibitions are shaped by Dean’s response to the individual character of each institution and explore genres traditionally associated with painting.
Spring Season 2018 sponsored by
Supported by the Tacita Dean: PORTRAIT Exhibition Circle
(Transaction fee applies)
Exhibitions are free for Members and Patrons
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Closing Monday 28 May 2018 |
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Wolfson and Lerner Gallery |
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Tickets £12 (£14 with donation) £5 ticket offer Enjoy £2 off Tacita Dean: LANDSCAPE with your Tacita Dean: PORTRAIT ticket |
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His Picture in Little
His Picture in Little, 2017 by Tacita Dean. 35mm anamorphic colour film, silent, reduced to spherical 16mm for exhibition as a miniature, 15 ½ minutes, continuous loop. Film still. Courtesy the artist; Frith Street Gallery, London and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/Paris
Borrowing its title from a line in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, His Picture in Little depicts three actors of different generations, Stephen Dillane, David Warner and Ben Whishaw, all of whom have played the Danish prince. The anamorphic film is miniature in scale and was conceived in dialogue with the National Portrait Gallery’s collection of late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century portrait miniatures. The work is displayed in room 16 within the Gallery’s permanent Collection, among a group of works that provide a glimpse of the context in which miniatures were created, through reference to their function and patronage, and their traces in the imaginative world of the English Renaissance. The selection includes works by the foremost practitioners of the art of miniature painting in England, Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver, and portraits of writers, such as William Shakespeare and John Donne, who wove miniatures into contemporary culture through references in their plays and poems.
Tacita Dean’s His Picture in Little has been conceived in dialogue with the Gallery’s collection of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century portrait miniatures.
A beautiful fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition
A range of gifts and products inspired by the exhibition, are now available to pre-order and buy from the Gallery shops and online
National Portrait Gallery
St Martin's Place
London
WC2H 0HE
020 7306 0055
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Opening hours
Daily 10.00 – 18.00
Fridays until 21.00.
Last admission to the exhibition is one hour before the Gallery closes.
Exiting commences ten minutes before the closing time.
Getting to the Gallery
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Leicester Square / Charing Cross |
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Charing Cross |
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For directions to the Gallery please click here |
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Orange Street Street ramp/shop entrance in St Martin's Place Recorded information: 020 7312 2463 |
Late Shift
Late Shift offers new ways to explore the Gallery after hours and socialise after work. Every Thursday and Friday enjoy a mix of art, music, drinks, talks, drawing and history until 21.00.