James Holloway CBE to retire as Director of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery

EDINBURGH.- The National Galleries of Scotland announced that James Holloway CBE will retire from his post as Director of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery at the end of January 2012. James Holloway (b. 1948) began his career in Scotland back in 1972 as a Research Assistant and Assistant Keeper at the National Gallery of Scotland (Department of Prints and Drawings). After a period as Assistant Keeper at the National Museum of Wales from 1980-1983, he returned to Scotland, joining the Portrait Gallery [...]

Richard Hamilton: Portrait of the Artist at the National Portrait Gallery in London

LONDON.- A new display at the National Portrait Gallery plays tribute to the life and career of artist Richard Hamilton, who died earlier this year. Ten portraits of Hamilton, one of the founders of Pop Art in Britain, will form the display which was originally intended to mark the artist’s approaching 90th birthday. Richard Hamilton: Portraits of the Artist will run from 19 December 2011 to 14 May 2012 in Room 32 of the Gallery. Hamilton was a member of the Independent Group [...]

National Portrait Gallery, London announces Call For Entries for the BP Portrait Award 2012

LONDON.- The National Portrait Gallery announces the Call for Entries for the BP Portrait Award 2012, the world’s most prestigious open competition for portrait painting. The Portrait Award, now in its thirty-third year at the National Portrait Gallery and twenty-third year of sponsorship by BP, is an annual event aimed at encouraging artists to focus upon and develop portraiture in their work. The BP Portrait Award 2012 exhibition will run at the National Portrait Gallery from 21 June to 23 September 2012. Holly [...]

New display celebrates the fifty year career of photographer Sandra Lousada

LONDON.- A new display at the National Portrait Gallery celebrates the fifty year career of photographer Sandra Lousada. The twenty one portraits on display depict key figures in literature, film and fashion from the early 1960s and form the first display of work by Lousada at the Gallery. Sandra Lousada: Work and Performance runs in the Bookshop Gallery from 28 November 2011 until 20 May 2012. Sir Tom Courtenay, 1962 by Sandra Lousada. ©Sandra Lousada. The Gallery has recently acquired forty portraits by [...]

Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh opens following £17.6 million transformation

EDINBURGH.- The Scottish National Portrait Gallery (SNPG) will open on 1 December, following an ambitious £17.6m restoration project and with an entirely new presentation of its world-famous collection. The project – the first major refurbishment in the Gallery’s 120-year history – has restored much of the architect’s original vision, opening up previously inaccessible parts of the building and increasing the public space by more than 60 percent. It has also added a range of new facilities that will utterly transform visitors’ [...]

Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2011 winners announced in London

LONDON.- The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2011 has been won by Jooney Woodward, 32, for her portrait, Harriet and Gentleman Jack. The portrait of 13-year-old Harriet Power was taken in the guinea pig judging area at the Royal Welsh Show. Woodward says: ‘I found her image immediately striking with her long, red hair and white stewarding coat. She is holding her own guinea pig called Gentleman Jack, named after the Jack Daniel’s whisky box in which he was given to [...]

Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery hosts The Black List: Portraits by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

WASHINGTON, D.C (AP).- Whoopi Goldberg, John Legend, Sean Combs and Serena Williams now have a place in the National Portrait Gallery in a show opening Friday, along with other leading black figures who may be lesser known. “The Black List” features 50 large-scale photographs from Timothy Greenfield-Sanders in a project that also included a 2008 HBO film. After a conversation with his friend, the writer Toni Morrison, Greenfield-Sanders began thinking of all the successful black figures he knows — and how so many [...]

National Portrait Gallery announces Lucian Freud portraits exhibition in February 2012

LONDON.- The last work of the late Lucian Freud will go on show for the first time at the most ambitious exhibition of the artist’s work for ten years, opening at the National Portrait Gallery, London, in February 2012. The inclusion of Portrait of the Hound 2011, the unfinished nude painting of Freud’s assistant David Dawson with his dog Eli, will enable exhibition visitors for the first time to see the artist’s most important portraits from the earliest in the 1940s to [...]

Shortlist announced for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2011

LONDON.- For the first time ever, five photographers have been shortlisted for the £12,000 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, the major international photography award. Firmly established as the leading showcase for new talent in portrait photography, the prize is sponsored by international law firm Taylor Wessing. The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2011 will showcase the work of some of the most talented emerging young photographers, alongside that of established professionals, photography students and gifted amateurs. Selected anonymously from an open competition, [...]

National Portrait Gallery marks the 400th anniversary of the birth of the artist William Dobson

LONDON.- A new display at the a National Portrait Gallery marks the 400th anniversary of the birth of the artist William Dobson. Considered the most important British painter of his generation, Dobson was a hugely significant witness to the English Civil War but his career was tragically short. This display is part of a wider celebration of Dobson’ s anniversary year which sees the launch of a special Dobson Art Trail created by The Sunday Times art critic Waldemar Januszczak. The four oil [...]

“Portraiture Now: Asian American portraits of encounter” at the National Portrait Gallery Aug. 12

WASHINGTON, D.C.- The Smithsonian‟s National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program have collaborated to mount the Smithsonian‟s first major showcase of contemporary Asian American portraiture. Through the work of seven artists from across the country and around the world, the exhibition offers thought-provoking interpretations of the Asian American experience and representations against and beyond the stereotypes that have obscured the complexity of being Asian in America. The exhibition is open Aug. 12 through Oct. 14, 2012. “The Portraiture Now‟ exhibition [...]

Striking New “Road to 2012″ Exhibition Opens at the National Portrait Gallery in London

LONDON.- Striking new photographs of Taekwondo world number one Aaron Cook doing a flying side-kick outside his Manchester home; champion swimmer Eleanor Simmonds about to start a training session and former champion, now Director of Paralympic Integration, Chris Holmes relaxing in the water, were revealed today. The portraits were taken by Finlay MacKay and Emma Hardy, announced as the latest photographers to be commissioned for the National Portrait Gallery/BT Road to 2012 Project as part of the Cultural Olympiad. Their work [...]

The Queen: Art and Image at the National Gallery Complex Celebrates Diamond Jubilee

EDINBURGH.- To mark The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012, the National Portrait Gallery stages an innovative touring exhibition bringing together 60 of the most remarkable and resonant images of Elizabeth II spanning the 60 years of her reign and some on public display for the first time. The Queen: Art and Image will tour to British venues before being shown in London, opening in Edinburgh in June, Belfast in October and Cardiff and London in 2012. From Beaton and Leibovitz [...]

National Portrait Gallery Acquires Rare Picture of Society Beauties as Macbeth’s Witches

LONDON.- As it launches a major exhibition of actress portraits, the National Portrait Gallery has announced the acquisition of a large and rarely seen picture of three of eighteenth-century society’s most glamorous and notorious women – as the three witches from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and Elizabeth Lamb, Viscountess Melbourne – the most famous political hostesses and society beauties of their day – are shown gathered around the witches’ cauldron alongside their friend, the sculptor Anne Seymour Damer. The [...]

The National Galleries of Scotland Reveal Dramatic Changes to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery

EDINBURGH.- The National Galleries of Scotland will today reveal the dramatic changes that have transformed the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in the two years since it closed for renovation in April 2009. The £17.6 m project, the first major refurbishment in the Gallery’s 120-year history, has restored much of the architect’s original vision of the building, clearing away an accumulation of twentieth-century interventions, and increasing the public and exhibition space by more than 60 percent. In addition, a range of [...]

Next Page »