The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an
art gallery in London housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous
British people
British people or Britons, also known colloquially as Brits, are the citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the British Overseas Territories, and the Crown dependencies.: British nationality law governs m ...
. It was arguably the first national public gallery dedicated to portraits in the world when it opened in 1856. The gallery moved in 1896 to its current site at St Martin's Place, off
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square ( ) is a public square in the City of Westminster, Central London, laid out in the early 19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. At its centre is a high column bearing a statue of Admiral Nelson comm ...
, and adjoining the
National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...
. It has been expanded twice since then. The National Portrait Gallery also has regional outposts at
Beningbrough Hall in
Yorkshire
Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...
and
Montacute House
Montacute House is a late Elizabethan era, Elizabethan mansion with a garden in Montacute, South Somerset.
An example of English architecture during a period that was moving from the medieval Gothic to the Renaissance Classical, and one of fe ...
in
Somerset
( en, All The People of Somerset)
, locator_map =
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, region = South West England
, established_date = Ancient
, established_by =
, preceded_by =
, origin =
, lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset
, lor ...
. It is unconnected to the
Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, with which its remit overlaps. The gallery is a
non-departmental public body
In the United Kingdom, non-departmental public body (NDPB) is a classification applied by the Cabinet Office, Treasury, the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to public sector organisations that have a role in the process o ...
sponsored by the
Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Collection
The gallery houses
portrait
A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this ...
s of historically important and famous
British people
British people or Britons, also known colloquially as Brits, are the citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the British Overseas Territories, and the Crown dependencies.: British nationality law governs m ...
, selected on the basis of the significance of the sitter, not that of the artist. The collection includes photographs and
caricature
A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings (compare to: cartoon). Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, ...
s as well as paintings, drawings and sculpture. One of its best-known images is the
Chandos portrait Chandos may refer to:
Titles
* Duke of Chandos, and Baron Chandos, three English titles, all extinct
* Viscount Chandos, a modern title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
Businesses
* Chandos Records
* Chandos Publishing
Other uses
* Chando ...
, the most famous portrait of
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
although there is some uncertainty about whether the painting actually is of the playwright.
Not all of the portraits are exceptional artistically, although there are self-portraits by
William Hogarth, Sir
Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter, specialising in portraits. John Russell said he was one of the major European painters of the 18th century. He promoted the "Grand Style" in painting which depend ...
and other
British artists of note. Some, such as the group portrait of the participants in the
Somerset House Conference of 1604, are important historical documents in their own right. Often, the curiosity value is greater than the artistic worth of a work, as in the case of the
anamorphic portrait of
Edward VI by
William Scrots,
Patrick Branwell Brontë's painting of his sisters
Charlotte
Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...
,
Emily
Emily may refer to:
* Emily (given name), including a list of people with the name
Music
* "Emily" (1964 song), title song by Johnny Mandel and Johnny Mercer to the film ''The Americanization of Emily''
* "Emily" (Dave Koz song), a 1990 song ...
and
Anne, or a sculpture of
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previ ...
and
Prince Albert in medieval costume. Portraits of living figures were allowed from 1969. In addition to its permanent galleries of historical portraits, the National Portrait Gallery exhibits a rapidly changing selection of contemporary work, stages exhibitions of portrait art by individual artists and hosts the annual
BP Portrait Prize competition.
History and buildings
The three people largely responsible for the founding of the National Portrait Gallery are commemorated with busts over the main entrance. At centre is
Philip Henry Stanhope, 4th Earl Stanhope, with his supporters on either side,
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, (; 25 October 1800 – 28 December 1859) was a British historian and Whig politician, who served as the Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841, and as the Paymaster-General between 1846 and 1 ...
(to Stanhope's left) and
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy.
Born in Ecclefechan, ...
(to Stanhope's right). It was Stanhope who, in 1846 as a Member of Parliament (MP), first proposed the idea of a National Portrait Gallery. It was not until his third attempt, in 1856, this time from the House of Lords, that the proposal was accepted. With Queen Victoria's approval, the House of Commons set aside a sum of £2000 to establish the gallery. As well as Stanhope and Macaulay, the founder Trustees included
Benjamin Disraeli
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creation ...
and
Lord Ellesmere. It was the latter who donated the
Chandos portrait Chandos may refer to:
Titles
* Duke of Chandos, and Baron Chandos, three English titles, all extinct
* Viscount Chandos, a modern title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
Businesses
* Chandos Records
* Chandos Publishing
Other uses
* Chando ...
to the nation as the gallery's first portrait. Carlyle became a trustee after the death of Ellesmere in 1857.
[History of the National Portrait Gallery](_blank)
accessed 26 May 2008.
For the first 40 years, the gallery was housed in various locations in London. The first 13 years were spent at 29
Great George Street
Great George Street is a street in Westminster, London, leading from Parliament Square to Birdcage Walk. The area of the current street was occupied by a number of small roads and yards housing inns and tenements. In the 1750s these were demol ...
,
Westminster
Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster.
The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, B ...
. There, the collection increased in size from 57 to 208 items, and the number of visitors from 5,300 to 34,500. In 1869, the collection moved to
Exhibition Road
Exhibition Road is a street in South Kensington, London which is home to several major museums and academic establishments, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum.
Overview
The road g ...
and buildings managed by the
Royal Horticultural Society
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity.
The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr (Nor ...
. Following a fire in those buildings, the collection was moved in 1885, this time to the
Bethnal Green Museum
Bethnal were a British rock band formed in 1972. In 1978, they released two albums on Vertigo Records: ''Dangerous Times'', produced by Kenny Laguna; and ''Crash Landing''; produced by Jon Astley and Phil Chapman,
with special thanks to Pete To ...
. This location was ultimately unsuitable due to its distance from the
West End, condensation and lack of waterproofing. Following calls for a new location to be found, the government accepted an offer of funds from the philanthropist William Henry Alexander. Alexander donated £60,000 followed by another £20,000, and also chose the architect,
Ewan Christian
Ewan Christian (1814–1895) was a British architect. He is most frequently noted for the restorations of Southwell Minster and Carlisle Cathedral, and the design of the National Portrait Gallery. He was Architect to the Ecclesiastical Commiss ...
. The government provided the new site, St Martin's Place, adjacent to the
National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...
, and £16,000.
The buildings, faced in
Portland stone, were constructed by Shillitoe & Son. Both the architect, Ewan Christian, and the gallery's first director,
George Scharf
Sir George Scharf KCB (16 December 1820 – 19 April 1895) was a British art critic, illustrator, and director of the National Portrait Gallery.
Biography
Early years
Scharf was born at 3 St Martin's Lane, London, the son of George Jo ...
, died shortly before the new building was completed. The gallery opened at its new location on 4 April 1896.
The site has since been expanded twice. The first extension, in 1933, was funded by
Lord Duveen
Joseph Duveen, 1st Baron Duveen (14 October 1869 – 25 May 1939), known as Sir Joseph Duveen, Baronet, between 1927 and 1933, was a British art dealer who was considered one of the most influential art dealers of all time.
Life and career
Jos ...
, and resulted in the wing by architect Sir
Richard Allison on a site previously occupied by
St George's Barracks running along Orange Street.
In February 1909, a murder–suicide took place in a gallery known as the ''Arctic Room''. In an apparently planned attack, John Tempest Dawson, aged 70, shot his 58 year–old wife, Nannie Caskie; Dawson shot her from behind with a revolver, then shot himself in the mouth, dying instantly. His wife died in hospital several hours later. Both were American nationals who had lived in
Hove
Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th ...
for around 10 years. Evidence at the inquest suggested that Dawson, a wealthy and well–travelled man, was suffering from a
persecutory delusion
A persecutory delusion is a common type of delusional condition in which the affected person believes that harm is going to occur to oneself by a persecutor, despite a clear lack of evidence. The person may believe that they are being targeted by a ...
. The incident came to public attention in 2010 when the Gallery's archive was put on-line as this included a personal account of the event by
James Donald Milner, then the Assistant Director of the Gallery.
The collections of the National Portrait Gallery were stored at
Mentmore Towers
Mentmore Towers, historically known simply as "Mentmore", is a 19th-century English country house built between 1852 and 1854 for the Rothschild family in the village of Mentmore in Buckinghamshire. Sir Joseph Paxton and his son-in-law, George ...
in Buckinghamshire during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, along with pieces from the
Royal Collection and paintings from Speaker's House in the Palace of Westminster.
Early 21st century
The second extension was funded by Sir
Christopher Ondaatje and a £12m
Heritage Lottery Fund grant, and was designed by London-based architects
Edward Jones and Jeremy Dixon. The Ondaatje Wing opened in 2000 and occupies a narrow space of land between the two 19th-century buildings of the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, and is notable for its immense, two-storey escalator that takes visitors to the earliest part of the collection, the
Tudor portraits.
In January 2008, the Gallery received its largest single donation to date, a £5m gift from U.S. billionaire
Randy Lerner.
In January 2012,
Catherine, Princess of Wales
Catherine, Princess of Wales, (born Catherine Elizabeth Middleton; 9 January 1982) is a member of the British royal family. She is married to William, Prince of Wales, heir apparent to the British throne, making Catherine the likely nex ...
announced the National Portrait Gallery as one of her official patronages.
Her portrait was unveiled in January 2013. The gallery holds nearly 20 portraits of
Harriet Martineau and her brother
James Martineau
James Martineau (; 21 April 1805 – 11 January 1900) was a British religious philosopher influential in the history of Unitarianism.
For 45 years he was Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy and Political Economy in Manchester New College ...
, whose great-nephew
Francis Martineau Lupton was the Duchess's great-great-grandfather.
Bodelwyddan Castle's partnership with the National Portrait Gallery came to an end in 2017 after its funding was cut by
Denbighshire County Council.
In June 2017 it was announced that the NPG has been awarded funding of £9.4 million from the
Heritage Lottery Fund towards its major transformation programme ''Inspiring People'', the Gallery's biggest ever development. The Gallery had already raised over £7m of its £35.5m target. The building works were scheduled to start in 2020.
In October 2019, a group of semi-naked environmental campaigners were drenched in fake oil, in the Ondaatje Wing main hall, as part of a protest against BP's sponsorship of a collection of pieces in the gallery. The protest performance piece, which was entitled Crude Truth, involve a clothed protester reciting a monologue in which they called upon arts organisations to sever ties with companies "funding extinction". Three activists covered in black liquid lay down for about five minutes on a plastic sheet before standing up again, wiping themselves down with towels, and cleaning up after themselves. The action, which was applauded by onlookers, passed uninterrupted.
Closure and refurbishment in 2020–2023
A major programme of refurbishment with the project name of "Inspiring People" will lead to the gallery's closure from 2020 to 2023. Some galleries will close by late May 2020, with full closure by July 2020. There are a number of planned exhibitions and collaborations around the UK to display parts of the collection while the gallery is closed. These will include exhibitions starting at the
York Art Gallery in 2021, the
Holburne Museum, Bath (Tudor portraits, 2022), and museums in Liverpool, Newcastle, Coventry and Edinburgh, which will later tour to other venues. Other partners include the
National Trust
The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
, the
National Maritime Museum and the
National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...
. In London, the shops and restaurants will close, but the Heinz Archive and Library will remain open. Another programme, called "Coming Home", loans portraits of individual people to museums in their home towns. Exhibitions will also travel to Japan, Australia and the United States.
["Inspiring People"]
The "Inspiring People" project "comprises a comprehensive redisplay of the Collection from the Tudors to now, combined with a complete refurbishment of the building, the creation of new public spaces, a more welcoming visitor entrance and public forecourt, and a new state of the art Learning Centre". The East Wing will return to being gallery space, with its own new street entrance.
Exterior busts
In addition to the busts of the three founders of the gallery over the entrance, the exterior of two of the original 1896 buildings are decorated with stone block busts of eminent portrait artists, biographical writers and historians. These busts, sculpted by
Frederick R. Thomas, depict
James Granger,
William Faithorne
William Faithorne, often "the Elder" (161613 May 1691), was an English painter and engraver.
Life
Faithorne was born in London and was apprenticed to William Peake. On the outbreak of the Civil War Faithorne accompanied his master into the ...
,
Edmund Lodge,
Thomas Fuller
Thomas Fuller (baptised 19 June 1608 – 16 August 1661) was an English churchman and historian. He is now remembered for his writings, particularly his ''Worthies of England'', published in 1662, after his death. He was a prolific author, and ...
,
The Earl of Clarendon,
Horace Walpole
Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whig politician.
He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twi ...
,
Hans Holbein the Younger
Hans Holbein the Younger ( , ; german: Hans Holbein der Jüngere; – between 7 October and 29 November 1543) was a German-Swiss painter and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style, and is considered one of the greatest por ...
,
Sir Anthony van Dyck
Sir Anthony van Dyck (, many variant spellings; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Brabantian Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern Netherlands and Italy.
The seventh ...
,
Sir Peter Lely,
Sir Godfrey Kneller,
Louis François Roubiliac Louis may refer to:
* Louis (coin)
* Louis (given name), origin and several individuals with this name
* Louis (surname)
* Louis (singer), Serbian singer
* HMS ''Louis'', two ships of the Royal Navy
See also
Derived or associated terms
* Lewis (d ...
,
William Hogarth,
Sir Joshua Reynolds,
Sir Thomas Lawrence
Sir Thomas Lawrence (13 April 1769 – 7 January 1830) was an English portrait painter and the fourth president of the Royal Academy. A child prodigy, he was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was an innkeeper at t ...
and
Sir Francis Chantrey.
Finances and staff
The National Portrait Gallery is an
executive non-departmental public body
In the United Kingdom, non-departmental public body (NDPB) is a classification applied by the Cabinet Office, Treasury, the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to public sector organisations that have a role in the process of ...
of the UK Government, sponsored by the
Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
The National Portrait Gallery's total income in 2007–2008 amounted to £16,610,000, the majority of which came from government
grant-in-aid (£7,038,000) and donations (£4,117,000).
As of 31 March 2008, its
net assets
Net worth is the value of all the non-financial and financial assets owned by an individual or institution minus the value of all its outstanding liabilities. Since financial assets minus outstanding liabilities equal net financial assets, net ...
amounted to £69,251,000.
[ In 2008, the NPG had 218 ]full-time equivalent
Full-time equivalent (FTE), or whole time equivalent (WTE), is a unit that indicates the workload of an employed person (or student) in a way that makes workloads or class loads comparable across various contexts. FTE is often used to measure a ...
employees.[ It is an exempt charity under English law.
]
Directors
*1857–1895: Sir George Scharf
Sir George Scharf KCB (16 December 1820 – 19 April 1895) was a British art critic, illustrator, and director of the National Portrait Gallery.
Biography
Early years
Scharf was born at 3 St Martin's Lane, London, the son of George Jo ...
KCB
*1895–1909: Sir Lionel Cust KCVO FSA – previously at the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
, and from 1901 to 1927 filled the role of Surveyor of the King's Pictures
The office of the Surveyor of the King's/Queen's Pictures, in the Royal Collection Department of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom, is responsible for the care and maintenance of the royal collection of pictures owned by ...
.
*1909–1916: Charles John Holmes – Later director of the National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...
*1917–1927: James Milner
*1927–1951: Henry Hake
*1951–1964: Charles Kingsley Adams
Charles Kingsley Adams, CBE, FBA (17 June 1899 – 19 January 1971) was director, Keeper and Secretary of the National Portrait Gallery from 1951 to 1964
Adams was born in Sidcup, Kent on 17 June 1899, the son of Albert and Annie Adams, his f ...
*1964–1967: Sir David Piper – Later director of the Fitzwilliam Museum
The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard FitzWilliam, 7th V ...
and fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge
Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 170 graduate students. The college was founded by William Byngham in 1437 as ...
(1967–1973), and first director of the Ashmolean Museum (1973–1985)
*1967–1973: Sir Roy Strong
*1974–1994: John Hayes
*1994–2002: Charles Saumarez Smith
Sir Charles Robert Saumarez Smith (born 28 May 1954) is a British cultural historian specialising in the history of art, design and architecture. He was the Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Arts in London from 2007 until ...
*2002–2015: Sandy Nairne CBE, FSA
*2015–present: Nicholas Cullinan
Nicholas Cullinan (born 1977) is an art historian and curator. On 6 January 2015 it was announced that he would be the 12th director of the National Portrait Gallery in London, a post he took up in the spring.
Cullinan was born in Connecticut ...
Legal threat against Wikipedia volunteer
On 14 July 2009, the National Portrait Gallery sent a demand letter alleging breach of copyright against an editor-user of Wikipedia, who downloaded thousands of high-resolution reproductions of public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired ...
paintings from the NPG website, and placed them on Wikipedia's sister media repository site, Wikimedia Commons.[
][
] The Gallery's position was that it held copyright in the digital images uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, and that it had made a significant financial investment in creating these digital reproductions. Whereas single-file low resolution images were already available on its website, the images added to Wikimedia Commons were re-integrated from separate files after the user "found a way to get around their software and download high-resolution images without permission."
In 2012, the Gallery licensed 53,000 low-resolution images under a Creative Commons licence, making them available free of charge for non-commercial use. A further 87,000 high-resolution images are available for academic use under the Gallery's own licence that invites donations in return; previously, the Gallery charged for high-resolution images.
, 100,000 images, around a third of the Gallery's collection, had been digitised.
See also
* BP Portrait Award
* British Photographic Portrait Prize
The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize is an annual photographic portrait prize awarded by the National Portrait Gallery in London. It was established in 2003 as the Schweppes Photographic Portrait Prize. In the years 2006 and 2007 it was ...
* Royal Society of Portrait Painters
References
Notes
Bibliography
*"Inspiring People"
National Portrait Gallery News Release, Tuesday 5 November 2019, "National Portrait Gallery Collection to Travel across the UK as Inspiring People Redevelopment Begins in July 2020"
see als
NPG Project Summary
*
Further reading
* Cannadine, David, ''National Portrait Gallery: a Brief History'', National Portrait Gallery, 2007,
* Hulme, Graham, ''The National Portrait Gallery: an Architectural History'', National Portrait Gallery Publications, 2000,
* Saumarez Smith, Charles, ''The National Portrait Gallery'', 2nd. rev. ed., National Portrait Gallery, 2010,
External links
*
*
{{Authority control
Art museums established in 1856
Grade I listed buildings in the City of Westminster
Grade I listed museum buildings
Museums sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
Non-departmental public bodies of the United Kingdom government
Exempt charities
Charities based in London
1856 establishments in England
Photography museums and galleries in England
Ewan Christian buildings