National Portrait Gallery

Arts minister extends export ban (again) to help save Joshua Reynolds’s Portrait of Omai

The export deferral on the famed painting has been extended to 10 June, giving London’s National Portrait Gallery a few more weeks to work out a deal, possibly with the Getty

Critics line up to condemn Science Museum’s sponsorship deal with Adani Green Energy

Museum is accused of “reprehensible” behaviour in allegedly allowing crisis-hit parent company Adani to greenwash its huge fossil fuel business

Show of unseen Paul McCartney photographs—taken at the height of Beatlemania—will help relaunch London’s National Portrait Gallery

Refurbished museum has also announced shows of female photographers Yevonde, Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron and will see the return of David Hockney

Acquisitions round-up: two London museums jointly purchase a masterpiece of the Aesthetic movement

Our pick of the latest gifts and purchases to enter institutional collections worldwide

New exhibition space! National Portrait Gallery buys former Victorian public lavatory

Museum in London acquired refurbished ticket kiosk site for £3m with funds from businessman Len Blavatnik

London's National Portrait Gallery to reopen its doors in June 2023 after three-year closure

The refurbishment is backed by a raft of sponsors including British-American billionaire Leonard Blavatnik and international law firm Herbert Smith Freehills

England footballer Raheem Sterling launches art project with National Portrait Gallery

Works on self-identity will be shown at the revamped London gallery next year

British artist-polymath Tom Phillips—portrait painter, composer and poet—has died, aged 85

Phillips's masterpiece is A Humument, a 50-year recreation, redrawing and rewriting of a long-forgotten Victorian novel, that informed the artist's wider output, including an opera and his translation of Dante's Inferno

London's National Portrait Gallery receives £10m donation from Leonard Blavatnik

First floor of London museum to be renamed the "Blavatnik Wing" and will display 100 years of portraiture across nine galleries

Brazil turns 200—and its National Museum rises from the ashes

Plus, the £50m Joshua Reynolds painting and Michael Heizer’s City

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If the National Portrait Gallery buys the £50m Portrait of Omai, it would be wonderful to loan it to Tahiti for a period

Joshua Reynolds's painting of a Polynesian man who travelled to Europe is emblematic of the extraordinary meeting of European and Pacific cultures 250 years ago

Donald Trump’s political action committee gives Smithsonian $650,000 to pay for presidential portrait commission

The funds will cover nearly the entire cost of commissioning official portraits of the former president and former first lady Melania Trump for the National Portrait Gallery

National Portrait Gallery in London ends BP sponsorship after 30 years

Spokeswoman for the oil company says it is looking at new ways to best use its resources in order to become net-zero by 2050

Second presenter from right-wing GB News channel appointed trustee of a UK museum

Former Brexit Party candidate Inaya Folarin Iman joins board of the National Portrait Gallery in London

Smithsonian will reopen eight museums and other venues in May after more than five-month closures

National of Gallery of Art also plans to open its West Building in Washington, DC

Acquisitions round-up: European museums co-purchase El Anatsui sculpture from collector Uli Sigg

Woodland scene by Jan Brueghel the Elder heads to Washington DC; London’s National Portrait Gallery gets a Gainsborough via acceptance in lieu

Carphone Warehouse billionaire David Ross did buy the Royal Opera House's $12.8m Hockney—now he is loaning it back

The portrait of David Webster will return immediately to the opera house before going to the National Portrait Gallery in 2023 for its reopening exhibition

Booksreview

Divine People: first biography of Ambrose McEvoy reveals how portrait artist became a darling of London and New York society a century ago

The typescript of Eric Chilston's book, based on primary sources and eye-witness accounts, was rediscovered in 2018 after being thought lost for nearly 40 years

What has the National Portrait Gallery’s Nicholas Cullinan been reading this summer?

The museum director has been delving into artist biographies, swotting up on black British history and is hoping to finally begin a well-known novel trilogy

Fundinganalysis

UK arts funders unlock crisis grants after coronavirus—but at what cost?

Unrestricted money from public and private sources is helping to keep hard-hit organisations running, but capital projects could suffer

Prizesnews

Artist Gary Hume says National Portrait Gallery should 'bite the bullet' and cut ties with oil giant BP

Fuel company's decision to withdraw from the BP Portrait Award judging panel was a missed opportunity to end sponsorship relationship, artist believes

UK museums put £500m projects on pause during the lockdown but plan to carry on

Enforced delay due to Covid-19 could add to millions of pounds of lost income in the sector

Cecil Beaton’s golden age celebrity snaps go on show in London

The exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery unites 150 images, including rarely exhibited photographs of his sisters Nancy and Baba

Not bigger, but better: behind the scenes of the £35.5m revamp at London's National Portrait Gallery

Director Nicholas Cullinan and architect Jamie Fobert reveal how the gallery’s controversial three-year closure will transform its 600-year collection of portraits

Three exhibitions to see in London this weekend

From David Hockney's portraits to a photography show radically rethinking masculinity