The National Portrait Gallery is kind of hidden away around the side of the National Gallery on St Martin’s Place.
It was established to showcase portraits of famous or important British people and in its Primary Collection has over 10,000 portrait paintings, drawings, photographs and sculptures. Its founders set it up ‘to display portraits of the Nation’s great men and women’ and ‘to act as a national focus for the study and understanding of portraits and portraiture.’
Its one of those places that is free to enter but has admission charges on certain temporary exhibitions. I stopped in there the other day and almost immediately on your right is The Photographic Portrait Prize 2006, a competition featuring photos of ordinary people from all over the world. Pretty interesting although I’m not sure I agreed with their choice of winner. It’s £1 to look around this gallery and its running until 18 February 2007.
Straight on past Portrait Prize 2006 is the Main Hall with a ticket and information desk, the other side of which is a gallery showing an exhibition called David Hockney Portraits featuring the British artist’s portrait work from the last 50 years. This is a hefty £9 to get into so unless you’re a fan you might want to carry on round the rest of the gallery. It finish’s on 21 January 2007. One exhibition I missed was the photographic Cherish: Chinese Families in Britain in the Studio Gallery on the Lower Ground floor, its running until March 2007 and is free.
In the Main Hall is an escalator going to the first floor and a set of stairs where half way up is an IT Gallery where you can use touch screens to look through the National Portrait Gallery’s collection. It was started in 1856 and moved into the current building in 1896, and when it was set up the primary consideration of portraits displayed was that they should be more about the person rather than the quality of the painting.
The oldest painting they have is a portrait from 1505 of Henry VII. The main body of the collection is on show on the 1st and 2nd Floors, the late and early 20th Century and Victorian periods are on the 1st Floor and the 2nd Floor is split into two periods, 1505-1714 and 1714-1837.
The National Portrait Gallery is on the right hand side of the road as you walk down from Leicester Square to Trafalgar Square. Its open veryday from 10am-6pm(Thurs/Fri-9pm) and is closed 24-26 December. The nearest tube stations are Charing Cross or Leicester Square. Map
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