LONDON.- The National Portrait Gallery has announced the acquisition of a new portrait of visionary artist Charli xcx, photographed by Harley Weir. The work is one of multiple acquisitions acquired through Collecting the Now, the Gallery's contemporary acquisitions fund supported by a million pound gift from the Bukhman Foundation, and is now on display in the History Makers space, Room 33, which celebrates figures who have shaped contemporary culture and public life.
Charli xcx is one of the defining artists of our time. Moving between the experimental and the mainstream, she has built a career characterised by reinvention, collaboration, and a singular approach to artistry that has influenced both the sound and visual language of contemporary culture. Her work has earned widespread critical acclaim including multiple BRIT and Grammy Awards, cementing her status as one of contemporary pop’s most influential creative voices. Beyond music, Charli has become a defining presence in fashion and contemporary image-making and has expanded her creative practice into film, where she acts, writes, produces and scores projects with directors including Takashi Miike, Greg Araki and Cathy Yann. This photograph was taken in 2024 by British photographer and director Harley Weir, whose distinctive, intimate visual style merges fashion, documentary, and fine art photography.
Weir’s photograph of Charli xcx is the latest portrait acquisition to be supported by the Bukhman Foundation through Collecting the Now. Launched in March 2025, the fund has had a transformative impact on the Gallery’s collection of contemporary portraiture.
Other recent acquisitions made using the fund include Self Portrait I (Venice), by Barbara Walker MBE RA – the acclaimed Birmingham-based artist whose figurative work explores race, class, representation and belonging in contemporary Britain - now on display in Room 30, and The Liverpool Sphinx by Linder (2025), which will go on display next month. In a career spanning five decades, Liverpool-born artist Linder has become renowned for her feminist collages and photomontages that use images from popular culture and satirical humour to subvert and critique ideas around traditional gender roles and the media representation of women. Further works will also be acquired throughout 2026. In 2025, the NPG used the fund to acquire a rare self-portrait by Dame Sonia Boyce OBE - From Someone Else's Fear Fantasy (A Case Of Mistaken Identity? Well This Is No Bed Of Roses) To Metamorphosis (1987) - and Souvenir 17 (Albert Edward, Prince of Wales) by Hew Locke, an adorned portrait bust of Edward VII now on display in the Empire and Resistance gallery (Room 23). Both portraits were the first of each artists’ works to enter the National Portrait Gallery’s Collection, having previously been represented only as sitters.
“It is an honour for the Bukhman Foundation to support exceptional public institutions such as the National Portrait Gallery as they respond to the present while preserving the past. We're proud that Collecting the Now is helping tell the story of our own time, and delighted that Charli xcx is now part of that story."
Anastasia Bukhman, Co-founder, Bukhman Foundation
“Harley Weir has developed a distinctive photographic language that combines intimacy with a powerful sense of presence. We are delighted to acquire this striking portrait of Charli xcx, which captures one of the defining cultural figures of her generation while reflecting the Gallery's commitment to collecting contemporary portraiture by the artists and photographers shaping our visual culture today.”
Brandei Estes, Senior Curator of Photographs, National Portrait Gallery
