After a three-year closure, and some much-needed renovations, the doors of the National Gallery will soon be opening up again. Amanda Hodges looks into its history – and highlights exciting new exhibitions
CHANGE – AND INDEED, EVOLUTION – has always been at the heart of London’s National Portrait Gallery. Its latest redevelopment, its biggest to date, entitled Inspiring People, certainly embodies this ethos. Supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, after a three-year closure, the Gallery finally reopens its doors in style this June. With much needed revitalisation overdue, general refurbishment felt timely, providing, as the Gallery says, “the opportunity to connect with new and existing visitors and ensure the space remains relevant to all audiences in the 21st century.”
The largest collection of portraits in the world with over 220,000 works, the National Portrait Gallery was first launched in December 1856 with the simple aim of collecting likenesses of “the most eminent persons in British history.” Philip Stanhope, one of three men responsible for mooting the project, had suggested the idea to the House of Commons in 1846, and in an 1852 speech again pressed its importance, wishing to establish “a gallery of original portraits… to consist… of persons most honourably commemorated in British history as warriors or as statesmen, or in arts, in literature or science”.
Given Queen Victoria’s approval, months later the House of Commons agreed to vote £2,000 towards the establishment of a ‘British Historical Portrait Gallery.’ The original trustees agreed a modus operandi whereby they’d “look at the celebrity of the person represented rather than the merit of the artist,” and charitably adopted the philosophy that given human fallibility, “great faults and errors” wouldn’t necessarily prohibit inclusion. Amongst the founder Trustees was Lord Ellesmere who offered Britain the Chandos portrait of Shakespeare; for a gallery reflecting a nation’s cultural interests it seems only fitting that the first picture acquired was that of our Bard.
It was first based, for 13 years, in Westminster then settled on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, hoping to move the Gallery’s holdings to the National Gallery, something proving unfeasible as acquisitions soared and visitor numbers escalated from 5,300 in 1859 to 80,000 in 1877. This Kensington abode was deemed unsatisfactory: many portraits hung high because of space constraints and large portraits viewed out of chronological sequence.
After a fire
