thu 31/10/2024

National Portrait Gallery

Glamour of the Gods: Hollywood Portraits, National Portrait Gallery

In the days before there were any paparazzi to catch celebrities unawares, the pictures of the stars that reached mere mortals like ourselves were carefully staged by the film studios. Establishments like MGM, Warner Bros and Paramount Pictures...

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Ida Kar: Bohemian Photographer, National Portrait Gallery

What ever happened to Ida Kar? If the question is not quite on the level of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, perhaps the answer is more interesting, if less melodramatic. Ida Kar - born Ida Karamian in Russia of Armenian parents, resident of Cairo...

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Judge of major art prize in intimate relationship with winner

Abbie Trayler-Smith's 'Untitled', from her series 'Childhood Obesity', was not among the strongest works in the competition

We usually leave art award controversies to the Turner Prize at Tate Britain. So it’s a surprise to hear that the National Portrait Gallery has stepped up to the plate with their annual Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. And if you’ve...

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Photo Gallery: Ballet in Focus

A display of rarely seen photographs of key ballet dancers from the start of the 20th century goes on display at the National Portrait Gallery. The gallery holds the largest surviving archive of the once-fashionable Bassano Studio, London, including...

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Bridget Riley: Paintings and Related Work, National Gallery

'Red with Red 1' (2007) by Bridget Riley

Well, we all make mistakes. Or, in my case, we (I mean “I”) sometimes just fail to look. This new, small but perfectly formed exhibition of Bridget Riley’s work in the National Gallery’s Sunley Rooms follows the pattern that the gallery has...

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Relics of Richard II, National Portrait Gallery

Box containing relics from the tomb of Richard II

The National Portrait Gallery is a national treasure. Not because it has nice pictures (although it does have that too), but because it has the most amazing archive. An archive that is, almost literally, a treasure trove. It is, of course, out of...

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Photo Gallery: Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2010

The winner of the National Portrait Gallery’s Taylor Wessing Prize was announced yesterday, and as with most prizes you know there must be an element of compromise when it comes to selecting the shortlist. David Chancellor’s winning portrait of a 14...

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Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2010, National Portrait Gallery

The National Portrait Gallery was early in picking up on the momentum gathering around photography in 2003, and committed itself then to an annual prize for portraiture. Today it’s one of the most anticipated competition exhibitions in the UK, and...

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Camille Silvy: Photographer of Modern Life, 1834-1910, National Portrait Gallery

Camille Silvy may be the least recognised of all the great photographic innovators of the 19th century. After a decade of almost ceaseless technical innovation, and astonishing output as the society portrait-photographer of the 1860s, he abruptly...

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Bridget Riley: From Life, National Portrait Gallery

Bridget Riley: 'Boy with curly hair', early 1950s (red conté crayon on paper)

Forget about art “being about the idea” for a moment. Drawing from life is still considered by many to be the litmus test for proper artistic skill, or at least the foundation from which great art can arise. And so the enquiry, “But can he really...

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Irving Penn: Small Trades, Hamiltons Gallery/ Portraits, NPG

Irving Penn's Le Chevrier 'holds his box as proudly as an artist with his paints'

This week I discovered Irving Penn’s little-known portraits of anonymous street traders, taken in Paris, London and New York between 1950 and 1951. Previously unseen in the UK, they are now appearing at Hamiltons’ Mayfair gallery: 33 examples from a...

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Princes William and Harry Portrait, National Portrait Gallery

The latest official royal portrait, and the first painted portrait featuring the Princes William and Harry, hangs in a small room at the National Portrait Gallery among a selection of royal portraits of the Windsors. There’s the rather quirky one of...

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