LONDON.- Historian Simon Schama has joined forces with
National Portrait Gallery curators to create a free exhibition of five intriguing new thematic displays in spaces across the permanent collections. Staged on three floors of the Gallery, portraits from across the Collection are displayed for the first time in cross-period groups according to themes rather than chronology, taking a long view of the history of British portraits in each room. This free exhibition includes over 120 portraits from the Gallerys Collections as well as several loans.
To coincide with the broadcast and publication this month of a new five-part TV series and book, the exhibition Simon Schamas Face of Britain (16 September 2015-4 January 2016), has been developed in partnership with the BBC. The collaboration also involves Oxford Film and TV who are making the television series for BBC Two and Viking / Penguin Random House who have published the book.
The displays, chapters and episodes reflect Simon Schamas innovative and challenging exploration of the development, character and meanings of British portraiture. Planned with the Gallerys team of curators led by Chief Curator Dr Tarnya Cooper, and Dr Lucy Peltz, each room in the exhibition comprises a cross-period selection in various media and, like each chapter and episode, explores one of the following themes: Power, People, Fame, Love and Self.
Visitors to the Gallery, readers of the book and viewers of the series are able to see a wide range of British portraits which cross the centuries, so Sir Winston Churchill and Baroness Thatcher can be seen alongside Elizabeth I (Power); Sir Kenelm and Venetia Digby, with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Jane Morris, several Lewis Carroll portraits of Alice Liddell and John Lennon and Yoko One (Love); Francis Drake and Thomas Carlyle with Diana, Princess of Wales (Fame); a group of Suffragettes alongside boxers (People); and a self-portrait room combining Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dame Laura Knight and Self created by Marc Quinn from his own blood.