The Art Fund’s Jonathan Ruffer curatorial grants support UK curators, museum professionals and researchers to undertake travel and other activities that will extend and develop their curatorial expertise, collections-based knowledge and art historical interests. The grants provide funding for travel and other practical costs, to help curators undertake collections and exhibition research projects in the […]
The team behind the BBC One series Fake or Fortune are asking The Understanding British Portraits network for help with finding potential works to investigate for their next series. Do you have an art mystery that you are currently researching and would like to get to the bottom of? Then the Fake or Fortune team would […]
A new collection display at Leeds Art Gallery invites visitors to look beyond the surface of an artwork into the creative process itself. Bringing together a range of artworks from the gallery’s nationally renowned works on paper collection which consists of over 10,000 items, works in the display date from the late 18th century to […]
An exhibition currently on display at Kensington Palace utilises portraiture to explore the life of Punjabi princess and suffragette icon, Sophia Duleep Singh, alongside the women who inspired her. Paintings and photographic portraits narrate the extraordinary lives and achievements of Sophia and her sisters Catherine and Bamba, her mother Bamba Müller and her grandmother Jind […]
2028 marks the centenary of the Equal Franchise Act, which granted women the right to vote on the exact same terms as men and established universal adult suffrage by lowering the voting age for women from 30 to 21. The National Portrait Gallery is developing a new touring exhibition celebrating the visionary activists and early […]
A new exhibition highlights the creativity, innovation and determination of women who have shaped British art from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. A collaboration between Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Worcester City Art Gallery & Museum and Kirkcaldy Galleries, Making Her Mark brings together over 50 works by women artists from their respective collections. Portraits […]
The collaborative touring exhibition Gender Stories has just opened at its final venue, the Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool. In dialogue with a diverse collection of decorative art, personal stories and objects, the rich selection of portraits in this exhibition traces the spectrum of genders and their expression across time and place. The power […]
This year’s Understanding British Portraits Annual Seminar took place at the University of Plymouth on 14 and 15 May and was organised in partnership with The Box, Plymouth. It was wonderful to be able to bring together network members from across the UK, hear about the latest research and practice in the field of portraiture […]
Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales has announced the first major retrospective in over forty years dedicated to one of Wales’ most accomplished artists, Gwen John. Gwen John: Strange Beauties places the artist centre stage in the year that will mark 150 years since her birth. Born in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire in 1876, Gwen John studied at the […]
Two small yet commanding lithograph portraits feature in the British Museum’s current exhibition Hawaiʻi: a kingdom crossing oceans. The portraits of King Liholiho and Queen Kamāmalu anchor this exhibition’s account of the unification of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i and their unprecedented diplomatic visit to the United Kingdom more than two hundred years ago. Diplomatic gifts presented […]
