National Portrait Gallery

St Martin's Place, London, WC2H 0HE Full details & map

National Portrait Gallery review

Portraits don't have to be stuffy. The National Portrait Gallery has everything from oil paintings of stiff-backed royals to photos of soccer stars and gloriously unflattering political caricatures. The portraits of musicians, scientists, artists, philanthropists and celebrities are arranged in chronological order from the top to the bottom of the building. At the top of the escalator up from the main foyer are the earliest works, portraits of Tudor and Stuart royals and notables. On the same floor, the eighteenth-century collection features Georgian writers and artists, with one room devoted to the influential Kit-Cat Club of Whig (leftish) intellectuals, Congreve and Dryden among them. More famous names here include Wren and Swift. The Duveen Extension contains Regency greats, military men such as Wellington and Nelson, as well as Byron, Wordsworth and other Romantics. The first floor is devoted to the Victorians (Dickens, Brunel, Darwin) and, in the Duveen Extension, the twentieth century. One of the NPG's most popular highlights is the annual BP Portrait Award where the best entrants for the prestigious prize are exhibited.


Events at National Portrait Gallery

Maggi Hambling

Until Sun Dec 6 Art FREE  

'George Always', display from Maggi Hambling's recent Walker Art Gallery exhibition of ink drawings and paintings of ...

Twiggy: A Life in Photographs

Until Mar 21 2010 Art FREE

A pictorial history of the career of the world's first supermodel.

Beatles to Bowie

Until Jan 24 2010 Around Town

This paid-for exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery explores the iconography of sixties pop culture through...

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National Portrait Gallery details

Address
St Martin's Place, London, WC2H 0HE

Transport Charing Cross 

Telephone

020 7306 0055

National Portrait Gallery website

Times 10am-6pm daily, until 9pm Thu & Fri

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