Every edition of the Understanding British Portraits Annual Seminar provides an energising environment for exchanging ideas on the latest research into portraiture, and the 2023 seminar proved to be an especially revitalising occasion. This was the first annual seminar that I had been able to attend since the pandemic and I was deeply impressed by […]
The National Portrait Gallery has recently launched a project to identify, and find the identities of, sitters from the global majority in historic British portraiture using the Gallery’s Heinz Archive and Library. This relates to all sitters who were racialized as ‘other than White’ by the society they lived in (particularly those of African and […]
We are excited to announce that the Understanding British Portraits network will be producing its very own Podcast! Aimed at the museum/gallery/heritage sector and wider listenership in the UK, the Podcast series is intended to support debate and enquiry around portrait interpretation, display, curation, research and audience engagement, reflecting current museological concerns and adding fresh voices […]
Friday 24 February, 14:00-18:00. Opal22 Arts and Entertainment have organised the panel discussion Casta, Caste and Classification, which will discuss the historical significance of Casta paintings. Tara Munroe, the director of Opal 22, discovered Leicester Museums & Art Gallery’s significant Casta collection 12 years ago, after they were discarded for […]
Wednesday 8th February 2023, 19:00-20:00. Richer Histories is an in-person panel discussion about the presence and diverse experiences of Black people in Georgian Britain, organised by and held at the Foundling Museum in London. By the late eighteenth century, it is estimated over 15,000 Black people lived in Britain – the result of free and forced […]
Making Modernism is the first major UK exhibition devoted to pioneering women working in Germany in the early 1900s: Paula Modersohn-Becker, Kӓthe Kollwitz, Gabriele Münter and Marianne Werefkin. Celebrated in their native homelands, this exhibition will introduce their innovative paintings and works on paper, alongside key pictures by Erma Bossi, Ottilie Reylaender and Jacoba van […]
Rebel Rebel, the first major UK commission by Iranian artist Soheila Sokhanvari, celebrates and commemorates feminist icons from pre-revolutionary Iran. Sokhanvari transforms the Curve into a devotional space, populated with exquisite miniature portraits of glamorous cultural figures from Iran. The project spotlights the rarely told histories of these women, who pursued creative careers in a […]
In this talk, Dr Lucy Davis explores in greater depth the miniatures at the Wallace Collection, which were collected by the Marquesses of Hertford and Sir Richard Wallace. She discusses highlights and less well-known examples from the collection, focussing particularly but not exclusively on the British miniatures. She explores the different techniques and materials used by […]
A recently discovered painting dated 1626 features an unidentified, regally-dressed child. The previously forgotten painting was left hanging behind an open door for several decades and was uncovered by an antiques expert during a house clearance, following the death of its owner. The 400-year-old portrait could fetch 20,000 pounds at auction. It bears the name Adriaen Verkins (possibly Dutch) and is dated […]
Jennifer Van Horne’s Portraits of Resistance tells a new history of American art: how enslaved people mobilized portraiture for acts of defiance. Revisiting the origins of portrait painting in the United States, Van Horn reveals how mythologies of whiteness and of nation building erased the aesthetic production of enslaved Americans of African descent and obscured […]
