What’s On March – May 2015 npg.org.uk Welcome About the Gallery The National Portrait Gallery is home to the largest Make the most of your visit with an Audio Visual collection of portraits in the world and celebrates the Guide (£3) available from the Information Desk, lives and achievements of those who have influenced featuring interactive maps, exclusive interviews and British history, culture and identity. themed tours. Family Audio Visual Guides are available, charges apply. npg.org.uk View over 115,000 works in the Collection and find The Visitor Guide (£5), available from the Gallery out more about the Gallery. Shops and Information Desk, highlights key portraits and fascinating stories. Explore the Collection and create your own tours using the interactive touch-screens in the The Gallery App (£1.19) is a perfect addition to your Digital Space. visit with video introductions, Collection highlights and floorplans. Available from iTunes. Keep in touch Register online for the Gallery’s free enewsletter. Pick up a Map to help plan your visit, including /nationalportraitgallery @npglondon suggested highlights, and support the Gallery with @nationalportraitgallery a £1 donation. Late Shift Take a break from the routine and explore the Gallery at Late Shift every Thursday and Friday until 21.00. Be inspired by our programme of regular events including drop-in drawing, live music and talks or relax with a drink at the Late Shift Bar. npg.org.uk/lateshift Exhibitions Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends 12 February – 25 May 2015 Wolfson Gallery John Singer Sargent (1856 – 1925) was the greatest portrait painter of his generation. Acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic, he was closely connected to many of the other leading artists, writers, actors and musicians of the time. His portraits of these friends and contemporaries, including Auguste Rodin, Claude Monet and Robert Louis Stevenson, were rarely commissioned and allowed him to create more intimate and experimental works than was possible in his formal portraiture. This major exhibition of over seventy portraits spans Sargent’s time in London, Paris, Boston and New York as well as his travels in the Italian and English countryside. Important loans from galleries and private collections in Europe and America make this an unmissable opportunity to discover the artist’s most daring, personal and distinctive portraits. #NPGSargent Tickets Including donation: £16 (Concessions £14.50) Seniors £13.50 every Wednesday. Students £13.50 every Tuesday. Standard prices also available. Free for Members Book now npg.org.uk/sargent, call 020 7766 7344 or visit the Gallery in person. Publications Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends exhibition catalogue by curator Richard Ormond, special Gallery price £35 hardback. John Singer Sargent: Painting Friends by Barbara Dayer Gallati, £10 paperback. Last admission is one hour before the Gallery closes. Sponsored by Close Brothers. This exhibition is made possible through support from the Terra Foundation for American Art. With the generous support of the Blavatnik Family Foundation. Supported by the American Friends of the National Portrait Gallery, London and the Sargent Exhibition Supporters Group. Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose Self-portrait 3 by John Singer Sargent, 1885-86 by John Singer Sargent, 1886 Tate: Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1887 Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums Collections © Tate, London, 2015 Exhibitions Wellington: Triumphs, Politics and Passions 12 March – 7 June 2015 Porter Gallery The Duke of Wellington’s long life spanned the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Most famous for his military career which culminated with victory over Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo in 1815, Wellington also served twice as Prime Minister and his political career was regularly caricatured by printmakers. Highlights of the exhibition, which is drawn from museums and private collections, include a youthful portrait by John Hoppner, Goya’s painting of Wellington started in 1812 but later modified to recognise further battle honours and a daguerreotype by Antoine Claudet, in the new medium of photography, taken on Wellington’s 75th birthday in 1844. The exhibition will also illustrate the role of visual culture in creating such a hero, and conclude with an examination of the reappraisal of Wellington’s life that took place at his death. #DukeOfWellington Admission free npg.org.uk/wellington Wellington: Triumphs, Politics and Passions exhibition catalogue by Paul Cox with a foreword by William Hague, £15 paperback Supported by the Wellington Exhibition Supporters Group 4 Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington by John Hoppner, c.1795 by Antoine Claudet, 1844 Wellington Collection, Stratfield Saye House Wellington Collection, Stratfield Saye House © Stratfield Saye Preservation Trust © Stratfield Saye Preservation Trust Exhibitions BP Portrait Award 2015 18 June – 20 September 2015 Wolfson Gallery The BP Portrait Award is the most prestigious international portrait painting competition in the world and the annual exhibition showcases fifty-five outstanding and innovative new portraits selected from over 2,000 entries. From informal and personal studies of friends and family to revealing images of famous faces, the free exhibition features a variety of styles and approaches to the contemporary painted portrait and continues to be an unmissable highlight of the annual art calendar. #BPPortrait Admission free npg.org.uk/bp BP Portrait Award 2015 exhibition catalogue with an essay by Neil Gaiman, £9.99 paperback Supported by BP Audrey Hepburn: Portraits of an Icon 2 July – 18 October 2015 Book now npg.org.uk/hepburn #Hepburn Jean Woods (detail) Audrey Hepburn (detail) 5 by Richard Twose, 2014 by Cecil Beaton, 1960 BP Portrait Award 2014 second prize ©The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby’s © Richard Twose Displays The Gallery’s changing programme of free displays highlight a range of themes, Floor 1 sitters and artists, as well as significant Room 23 anniversaries and acquisitions. Old Titles and New Money A focus on the late 19th-century phenomenon of American heiresses marrying into British aristocracy. Floor 2 The display explores how women such as Mary Curzon and Jennie Churchill became charismatic leaders of Room 3 British society. The Tudors Reimagined: Until 2 August 2015 George Perfect Harding Room 24: case display This display explores Thomas Carlyle: Historian of Heroes the fashion for historical A celebration of the eminent Victorian historian portraits in the early and literary figure, Thomas Carlyle. 19th-century by pairing Until 10 May 2015 watercolours of Tudor sitters made by George Room 25: case display Perfect Harding with the Painting Parliament: original portraits. The Fine Arts Commission, 1841 – 1863 From 14 March 2015 This display focuses on the committee of key Victorian figures appointed to oversee the decoration Room 6 of the newly-built Houses of Parliament. Cornelius Johnson: Charles I’s Forgotten Painter Until 31 May 2015 Prolific and successful in his lifetime, Cornelius Johnson is the forgotten man of 17th-century British Room 28: case display art. This display looks at a range of his paintings ‘The artist’s cause at heart’: including rarely seen portraits of the King’s children. M.H. Spielmann, Collector From 15 April 2015 and Donor This display explores M.H. Room 16 Spielmann’s discreet but Favourites: Painting and powerful reputation in the Power, 1600 – 1800 Victorian and Edwardian A display of three portraits art worlds; and his of Knights of the Order of exemplary generosity the Garter, Britain’s highest towards the Gallery. order of chivalry. These Until 19 September 2015 royal favourites were among the most powerful Room 29: case display and controversial figures Henry Tonks: Studies of the Artist of their day. A showcase of three self-portrait sketches made Until 16 August 2015 on the eve of the First World War by one of the most influential art teachers of the 20th century. Until 12 July 2015 6 Sir Nicholas Throckmorton Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke Marion Harry Spielmann by George Perfect Harding, of Leeds (‘Lord Danby’) by John Henry Frederick Bacon, 1904 after Unknown artist, c.1562 by Johann Kerseboom, and Jan van der Vaart, 1704 Floor 1 Floor 1 Room 31 Room 33 Suffragettes: Colour, Light, Texture: Portraits by Matthew Smith Deeds Not Words and Frank Dobson Through vintage Modernist painter Matthew Smith and sculptor Frank photographs of key figures Dobson share a concern with colour, light and texture, and rarely-seen archival explored in this display of portraits. documents, this display Until 6 April 2015 explores the threat and impact of Suffragette Room 33 attacks on works of art in On Belonging: public institutions including Photographs of Indians the Gallery. Taking place of African Descent shortly before the First World War, attacks on art This display of photographs were part of a wider militant campaign to secure by Ketaki Sheth, one of political equality for British women. India’s most celebrated Until 10 May 2015 contemporary photographers, captures Room 31 the Sidi people, an African Women and the First World War minority living in India and raises universal questions This display explores the various roles women played about nationality and ethnic origin. during the war through a selection of photographic From 13 April 2015 portraits, including the martyred nurse Edith Cavell and the Serbian soldier Flora Sandes. Until 1 October 2015 Floor 0 Across Floor 1 Room 37 and 37a Grayson Perry: Who Are You? Snowdon: A Life in View Grayson Perry explores contemporary British identity This display celebrates a through fourteen new portraits of individuals, families major gift of photographs and groups, made during his Channel 4 series from Lord Snowdon to the Who Are You? Gallery. Highlight portraits Sponsored by Coutts on display include studies Until 15 March 2015 of writers Nell Dunn and Graham Greene, actors Room 32 Julie Christie and Terence Jack Smith: Stamp, and selections from Private View (1965), Abstract Portraits Snowdon’s important examination of the British Continuing in the art world.