LONDON.- Today the National Portrait Gallery unveils a new portrait of singer, pianist, composer and philanthropist Sir Elton John and his family; his husband, David, and sons, Zachary and Elijah. Commissioned by the Gallery and taken by renowned photographer Catherine Opie, it is the first family portrait of the Furnish-Johns to enter a national collection. Captured ahead of Opie’s major NPG exhibition,Catherine Opie: To Be Seen, the portrait will form part of a series of interventions across the NPG’s Collection galleries to coincide with the exhibition, before entering the Gallery’s Permanent Collection.

Today the National Portrait Gallery unveils a new portrait of singer, pianist, composer and philanthropist Sir Elton John and his family; his husband, David, and sons, Zachary and Elijah. Commissioned by the Gallery and taken by renowned photographer Catherine Opie, it is the first family portrait of the Furnish-Johns to enter a national collection. Captured ahead of Opie’s major NPG exhibition, Catherine Opie: To Be Seen, the portrait will form part of a series of interventions across the NPG’s Collection galleries to coincide with the exhibition, before entering the Gallery’s Permanent Collection.

John and Furnish met in the early 1990s and entered a civil partnership in 2005, marrying in 2014. They had their first son, Zachary Furnish-John, in 2010, and Elijah Furnish-John in 2013. Among the most celebrated musicians and cultural icons of all time, John has sold over 327 million records and is one of the most successful charting musicians of all time. His flamboyant style and hits from ‘Your Song’ at the start of the 1970s, right through to the 2020s chart topping ‘Cold Heart (PNAU Remix) have become evergreen classics.

Dedicated advocates, John and Furnish have long used their platforms to champion LGBTQ+ rights. Furnish is Chair of the Elton John AIDS Foundation, a global leader in the fight against HIV/AIDS, who have helped raise over $650 million for life-saving programmes and tackled the stigma that stands in the way of ending the epidemic.

John and Furnish have long supported Catherine Opie’s career, and her work is part of The Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection, one of the world's greatest photography collections. The commissioning of this portrait marks a remarkable opportunity for the NPG to bring together an artist and sitters in celebration of LGBTQ+ representation, philanthropic work and highly regarded photographic art.

For over thirty years, Catherine Opie has captured often overlooked aspects of contemporary American life and culture, frequently documenting the lives of LGBTQ+ friends and communities. Opie conceived the portrait in the style of her Domestic series (1998) of tender portraits of queer families enacting their normal lives at home. Through this family portrait she celebrates queer and celebrity lives within the visual language of domesticity and belonging. Opie chose to photograph the Furnish-John family with their pet Labradors Joseph and Jacob in the library, with its shelves of biographies, in their family home in Old Windsor.

“I arrived at Elton and David’s house three days before Christmas. I met the boys and the dogs and after a great lunch together I made this family portrait of them in their library. It is truly an honour to photograph Elton, David, Zachary, and Elijah. For me it represents the humanity of what family can be.” --- Catherine Opie, Artist

“To have our family photographed by Catherine Opie and on display at the National Portrait Gallery is a huge honour. We are huge admirers of her work and proud to have her beautiful and poignant images in our collection.” --- Sir Elton John and David Furnish

“The National Portrait Gallery’s Collection exists to share portraits of the people who have shaped the history and culture of the UK, from the Tudor times to today. The people on our walls, and the stories we tell about them, are a source of inspiration for the millions of people who come through our doors, and particularly the many young people who visit every year. I am delighted to welcome this important portrait of the Furnish-John family by Catherine Opie into our Collection. It celebrates not only Sir Elton John’s extraordinary achievements in music but also the vital humanitarian and philanthropic work that he and David have undertaken in recent decades, and the family they have built together.” --- Victoria Siddall, Director of the National Portrait Gallery

“Sir Elton John is a defining cultural figure of our time. Supporting this commission by Catherine Opie allows us to participate in the creation of a work that speaks not only to individual legacy, but to shared cultural memory. For iArtis, this is exactly where art belongs. In public institutions, accessible, preserved, and contextualised for generations to come.” -- Anastasios Economou and Varvara Roza, iArtis Foundation