National Portrait Gallery
Marina Vaizey
Scores of reddish-bronze skinned men, and a few women and children, in full regalia, festooned in face paint, feathers, jewellery and decorations of all kind. They stare out at us, impassive and imperturbable, immortalised by George Catlin (1796-1872), the most famous American artist you have never heard of. His work is embedded in the American consciousness, if not its conscience. This succinct and representative selection visits London 170 years after the sensational exhibition of his Indian Gallery in the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly in 1843, when 500 of his portraits of American Read more ...
mark.hudson
Travelling through Canada by train – more decades ago than I care to divulge here – I bought a book of Man Ray photographs at Banff in the heart of the Rockies. I spent the rest of the journey with one eye on the majestic mountains, and the other glued to the luminous, edgy, ineffably stylish images of the American surrealist in Paris.Those images were pretty well-known then. They’re infinitely better known now. The "Ingres" woman with violin marks on her back (pictured below, Le Violon d’Ingres, 1924), the pale-faced Parisian beauty with the African mask, the solarised profile of Lee Miller Read more ...
fisun.guner
The first thing to say about Paul Elmsley’s portrait of the Duchess of Cambridge, which was unveiled yesterday at the National Portrait Gallery, is that it looks rather better in real life than it does in reproduction. That doesn’t make it a great painting, but nor is it a risible one. The soft-focused, Vaseline-smeared visage, framed by that undulating cascade of buoyant hair (it’s unfortunate how much this makes her look as if she's taking part in an ad campaign for shampoo) is more convincingly defined and skilfully modelled than it is when you see it on the screen.Certainly, there’s a Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
The Taylor Wessing Photographic… well, you get the drift. It's quite a long title for what is now one of the most fascinating and wide-ranging exhibitions of photographs mounted in London, and which goes out on tour nationally next year. It is described as a snapshot of contemporary portrait photography, and this is one of the strongest iterations yet, 60 photographs selected from an international submission of over 5,000 images from more than 2,000 photographers, all taken within the last year or so. Each has been chosen blind, as the photographer was not identified during the Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
The Queen is the first mass-media monarch, and still probably the most ubiquitously depicted person in history. Her 60 years on the throne is only exceeded by Victoria, and her reign has coincided, of course, with photography, film and television. The profusion of royal imagery is exaggerated and exacerbated by the cult of celebrity and the new technology of the internet and social networking. This has led to an overwhelming sense that the public has the right to know the most intimate details of the lives of public figures.The Queen however has, one way or another, escaped the Read more ...
ash.smyth
Right, out with it: who else had their Valentine’s dinner-out ruined by 36 consecutive requests for Whitney Houston? Not even the entire back-catalogue, either: just “(And I-ee-I-ee-) I…”, over and over.I mean, the basic message is all right, I guess; but knowing what one knew about the recently departed – i.e. that she was recently departed – didn't really help with the whole romantic mood (if you know what I’m saying). And then what was on telly when we got home? The Bodyguard. Of course it was. The whole point of which movie being, by the way, that, notwithstanding her bad-girl Read more ...
fisun.guner
Sitting for Lucian Freud was quite a commitment. Unlike Hockney, whom he painted and who painted him, Freud was a very slow painter and he was methodical. Paying close attention to detail and absorbed by different textures, he was intent on building up surfaces meticulously, layer upon layer. This meant that sessions would usually go on for several months, sometimes years. And because Freud felt that their presence affected the surrounding space, like the ripple effect on water, he even required his sitters to continue to sit for him even if he was occupied with painting the crumbling plaster Read more ...
judith.flanders
What is it that makes an exhibition special, keeps you looking longer than you expected, ensures you think about it long after you’ve left? Obviously, the art, or in a history show, the subject, is the first thing. The installation sometimes (although a good show is more usually damaged by poor installation than a poor one is rescued by good). Then there are the juxtapositions, the unexpected nuggets of information, novelty, rarity.The question arises because the National Portrait Gallery’s new show on the actresses of the 17th and 18th centuries should have everything it takes: some of the Read more ...
ash.smyth
From Edinburgh to London and back, via Tatooine and Port Talbot, Rich Hardcastle has photographed playwrights and magicians, burlesque dancers and rugby captains, and regularly adorned the covers of The Big Issue, FHM and The Sunday Times Culture section. Along the way, though, the 40-year-old Londoner has missed no opportunity to shoot the great and the good-humoured, has documented Karl Pilkington’s idiocy abroad, and has produced the pictures for the illustrated book of Extras. Photographing funny faces, it turns out, is something of a specialism – and this month, his portrait of Rob Read more ...
alice.vincent
With ReAnimate, the National Portrait Gallery’s Late Shift team were aiming high. The event sought to bring a free sensory experience throughout the entire building, promising to enchant the hordes away from Trafalgar Square and into a visionary evening of stimulation – not just of sight and sound, but also taste and smell.It would do so through the combined curative powers of Karen Pearson and her award-winning radio production company, and Martyn Ware, electronic music pioneer famed for founding The Human League and Illustrious Company, the tech-savvy sound technology and collaborative Read more ...