From punchy short pieces to longer form leanings, it's the place to come for a frequent fix of the world's most accessible art form.
Penelope Grist finds photographer Matt Nettheim re-visiting a formative and fulfilling career tram stop.
Tedi Bills on how social media in the age of COVID-19 has fanned the flames of our portrait fascination.
Emily Casey takes in Shirley Purdie’s remarkable self-portrait, Ngalim-Ngalimbooroo Ngagenybe.
Ensconced and meditative in crisp Tasmania, Joanna Gilmour pays tribute to passionate green advocate and photographer Olegas Truchanas.
Corinna Cullen on the symbolic power of pandemic-related imagery over the ages.
Jon Muir, adventurer and Portrait Gallery Collection subject, really knows about isolation.
Tara James speaks to Cam Neville about his portrait series, Firefighters.
Nici Cumpston immerses herself in the collective vision of the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2020.
This is my last Trumbology before, in a little more than a week from now, I pass to my successor Karen Quinlan the precious baton of the Directorship of the National Portrait Gallery.
One of the chief aims of George Stubbs, 1724–1806, the late Judy Egerton’s great 1984–85 exhibition at the Tate Gallery was to provide an eloquent rebuttal to Josiah Wedgwood’s famous remark of 1780: “Noboby suspects Mr Stubs [sic] of painting anything but horses & lions, or dogs & tigers.”
Dr Helen Nugent AO, Chairman, National Portrait Gallery at the opening of 20/20: Celebrating twenty years with twenty new portrait commissions.
Books seldom make me angry but this one did. At first, I was powerfully struck by the uncanny parallels that existed between the Mellons of Pittsburgh and the Thyssens of the Ruhr through the same period, essentially the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
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