Displaying items by tag: portraits

Irving Penn (1917–2009), known for his iconic fashion, portrait and still life images that appeared in Vogue magazine, ranks as one of the foremost photographers of the 20th century. “Irving Penn: Beyond Beauty,” the first retrospective of Penn’s work in nearly 20 years, celebrates his legacy as a modern master and reveal the full expressive range of his work.

The exhibition features work from all stages of Penn’s career—street scenes from the late 1930s, photographs of the American South from the early 1940s, celebrity portraits, fashion photographs, still lifes and more private studio images.

An important archive comprising Lucian Freud’s sketchbooks, drawings and letters has been acquired by the nation from the estate of Lucian Freud through the Acceptance in Lieu Scheme. The archive has been permanently allocated to the National Portrait Gallery, which in 2012 staged the acclaimed Lucian Freud Portraits exhibition, the Gallery’s most visited ticketed exhibition.

The National Portrait Gallery plans to make the archive, which has never been published or exhibited, accessible to the public.

On Saturday, November 14, the American Art Fair (TAAF) will kick off its eighth iteration with a gala preview at New York’s Bohemian National Hall. The fair, which spotlights American nineteenth and twentieth century works of art, will present a tightly curated selection of landscapes, portraits, still lifes, and sculpture from seventeen exceptional exhibitors.

Participating galleries include some of the...

Russia and the UK are embarking on an unprecedented cultural exchange whereby London's National Portrait Gallery and Moscow's State Tretyakov Gallery will swap some of their most precious portraits.

Marking the 160th anniversary of both museums, the State Tretyakov Gallery will send portraits of important Russian cultural figures—including Leo Tolstoy, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Modest Mussorgsky—to London, while the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) will send paintings of William Shakespeare, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Thomas Carlyle to Moscow.

Spanish painter Francisco de Goya's stark portrayals of Spanish aristocrats, intellectuals and fellow artists in a major new exhibition at the National Gallery in London aims to show him as "the best ever portrait artist."

The exhibition, which opens on Wednesday, brings together from around the world around 70 portraits by the celebrated artist who lived between 1746 and 1828.

The works make up almost half of the 150 Goya portraits that still survive today, and account for a third of his total known output.

Leading authorities in the folk art field will present talks on the themes and ideas explored in the exhibition "A Perfect Likeness": Folk Portraits and Early Photography, part of Fenimore Art Museum’s Annual Americana Series.

The exhibition, “A Perfect Likeness”: Folk Portraits and Early Photography, which opens the same day and is on view through December 31, 2015, illustrates how early photography contributed to the demise of folk portraiture in the 1840-50 period. Established painters were deeply affected by the invention of the daguerreotype and their reactions to this early photographic method varied.

The Netherlands and France will together buy two rare Rembrandts for a total of €160m (£118m), the Dutch culture minister has announced, after the two countries defused a potential bidding war.

The 17th-century paintings, which belong to the Rothschild banking family and have rarely been seen in public, will alternate between the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Louvre in Paris, Jet Bussemaker said in a letter to the Dutch parliament.

In what appears at first glance to be a simple, magnanimous act, a Russian billionaire is poised this week to return two Picassos, valued at $30 million, to the artist’s stepdaughter, who says the works, both portraits of her mother — Jacqueline Roque, Picasso’s second wife — were stolen from her.

The businessman, Dmitry E. Rybolovlev, owner of one of the world’s most valuable art collections, said in an interview last week that he bought the works in good faith in 2013, without any hint that there was a question about their title.

The National Gallery announced that a pair of rarely lent royal portraits will be coming to London as a late addition to the landmark exhibition Goya: The Portraits, sponsored by Credit Suisse, which opens on October 7. Charles IV in Hunting Dress and María Luisa wearing a Mantilla, both painted in 1799, are last minute loans from the Patrimonio Nacional in Spain.

This is only the second time the paintings have ever been lent as a pair and only the second time they have ever left Spain. The royal portraits, which are of major importance to the artistic heritage of Spain, are in excellent, original condition and still in their original gilt wood frames having hung in the Palacio Real, Madrid ever since they were created by the iconic Spanish painter.

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) and Robert Mapplethorpe (1946–1989) are well known for significant work in portraiture and self-portraiture that challenged gender roles and notions of femininity, masculinity, and androgyny. This exciting and original book is the first to consider the two artists together, examining the powerful portraits they created during the vibrant and tumultuous era bookended by the Stonewall riots and the AIDS crisis. Several important bodies of work are featured, including Warhol’s Ladies and Gentlemen series of drag queen portraits and his collaboration with Christopher Makos on Altered Image, in which Warhol was photographed in makeup and wigs, and Mapplethorpe’s photographs of Patti Smith and of female body builder Lisa Lyon.