National Portrait Gallery (London)
The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art museum on St Martin's Place, London , which opened in 1856. It houses portraits of historically important and famous British people.
The portraits are selected based on the importance of the person being portrayed, not the artist who created the work. The collection includes photographs , caricatures , paintings , drawings and sculptures . The collection also includes self-portraits by, for example, William Hogarth , Sir Joshua Reynolds and other famous British artists. Portraits of living personalities have also been permitted since 1969.
The first picture the museum received when it was founded - and arguably the most famous to this day - is the so-called Chandos portrait of William Shakespeare , which, according to an investigation by the NPG in 2006, was the most likely candidate among the poet's surviving pictures true portrait applies.
In 1896 the gallery moved into its current building next to the National Gallery . The building has since been expanded twice.
Photographs have also been collected since 1932. The first person whose photograph was included in the collection after controversial discussions was cookbook author and journalist Isabella Beeton .
In addition to historical portraits, the museum shows a collection of contemporary works as well as special exhibitions on individual artists, and annually organizes the BP Portrait Prize competition .
Directors
- 1857–1895 George Scharf
- 1895-1909 Lionel Cust
- 1909-1916 Charles Holmes
- 1917–1927 James Milner
- 1927-1951 Henry M. Hake
- 1951–1964 Charles Kingsley Adams
- 1964-1966 David Piper
- 1967-1973 Roy Strong
- 1974-1994 John Hayes
- 1994-2002 Charles Saumarez Smith
- 2002-2014 Sandy Nairne
- 2015– Nicholas Cullinan
Special exhibitions
- 2012: Lucian Freud: “Portraits”.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Charlotte Higgins: The only true painting of Shakespeare - probably ( Memento of the original from July 12, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: The Guardian , March 2, 2006
- ^ Between seduction and rape in FAZ of February 13, 2012, p. 26.
Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 30 ″ N , 0 ° 7 ′ 46 ″ W.