National Portrait Gallery

The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, dedicated to housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. When it opened in 1856, it was arguably the first national public gallery in the world dedicated solely to portraiture. The institution selects works based on the historical significance of the sitter rather than the artistic merit of the creator. Today, the gallery operates as a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

The gallery was founded following three attempts by Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl Stanhope, beginning with his initial proposal to Parliament in 1846. His efforts succeeded in 1856 from the House of Lords, resulting in Queen Victoria's approval and a House of Commons allocation of 2000 pounds to establish the institution. Stanhope was supported by Thomas Babington Macaulay and Thomas Carlyle, and the founder trustees included Benjamin Disraeli and Lord Ellesmere. Ellesmere donated the gallery's first portrait, the Chandos portrait of William Shakespeare, to the nation. Carlyle became a trustee following Ellesmere's death in 1857. For its first forty years, the gallery occupied various locations in London. It spent its first thirteen years at 29 Great George Street, Westminster, where the collection grew from 57 to 208 items. In 1869, it moved to Exhibition Road under the management of the Royal Horticultural Society, but after a fire, it relocated to the Bethnal Green Museum in 1885. This site proved unsuitable due to its distance from the West End and issues with condensation and waterproofing. The government subsequently accepted funds from the philanthropist William Henry Alexander, who donated 80,000 pounds and selected the architect Ewan Christian. The government provided the site at St Martin's Place and 16,000 pounds. The gallery opened at this current location on 4 April 1896. The first director, George Scharf, and the architect both died shortly before the completion of the new building. The gallery's first extension occurred in 1933, funded by Lord Duveen and designed by Sir Richard Allison. A second extension, the Ondaatje Wing, opened in 2000, funded by Sir Christopher Ondaatje and a 12 million pound Heritage Lottery Fund grant, and designed by architects Edward Jones and Jeremy Dixon.

The collection encompasses more than 220,000 works, including a core of over 12,700 portraits comprising paintings, sculptures, and miniatures. It also holds more than 8,500 light-sensitive works on paper, which are rotated to prevent fading, and a photography collection of over 250,000 original photographs and 130,000 original negatives dating from 1840 to the present. Photography has been actively collected since 1932, with cookbook author and journalist Isabella Beeton being the first person whose photograph was acquired after some controversy. Portraits of living figures were permitted starting in 1969. The gallery's reference collection, housed in the Heinz Archive and Library on Orange Street, contains over 80,000 portraits, including prints, drawings, silhouettes, caricatures, medals, and miniatures. The archive was inaugurated by Queen Elizabeth II in 1993 and has received ongoing philanthropic support from Drue Heinz.

The most famous holding is the Chandos portrait, the gallery's first acquisition and the most probable surviving portrait of William Shakespeare made during his lifetime, according to a 2006 gallery investigation. Other notable historical works include an anamorphic portrait of Edward VI by William Scrots, Patrick Branwell Brontë's painting of his sisters Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, and a sculpture of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in medieval costume. The collection also features self-portraits by prominent British artists such as William Hogarth and Sir Joshua Reynolds, as well as important historical documents like the group portrait of the participants in the Somerset House Conference of 1604. The gallery also holds numerous portraits by Anthony van Dyck, including a self-portrait from circa 1640, a portrait of Edmund Verney from circa 1640, and a portrait of Edward Littleton. The earliest painting in the collection is a portrait of Henry VII by Michel Sittow from 1505. Additionally, the gallery features a prominent series of portraits of the Kit-Cat Club members by Godfrey Kneller, depicting 18th-century Whig politicians and literary figures such as Robert Walpole and Joseph Addison. In 2013, the gallery unveiled the first official portrait of Catherine Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, by Paul Emsley.

The gallery is situated at St Martin's Place, off Trafalgar Square, directly adjoining the National Gallery. The original building, faced in Portland stone, was constructed by Shillitoe & Son in an Italian Renaissance style. The 1933 extension by Sir Richard Allison occupied a site previously holding St George's Barracks along Orange Street. The 2000 Ondaatje Wing occupies a narrow space between the 19th-century buildings of the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery and is notable for its immense, two-storey escalator that transports visitors to the earliest part of the collection, the Tudor portraits. Busts of the three founders, Philip Stanhope, Thomas Babington Macaulay, and Thomas Carlyle, commemorate the gallery's establishment over the former main entrance. During the Second World War, the collections were stored at Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire for safety.

The National Portrait Gallery is located at St Martin's Place in the City of Westminster, London. Admission to the gallery is free. In addition to its London location, the institution maintains regional outposts at Beningbrough Hall in Yorkshire and Montacute House in Somerset. The gallery is unconnected to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, although their collection remits overlap. Beyond its permanent historical displays, the gallery hosts a rapidly changing selection of contemporary work, stages exhibitions of portrait art by individual artists, and runs the annual BP Portrait Award competition. In 2019, the museum ended its sponsorship relationship with the Sackler family due to their involvement in a major public health scandal.