The National Portrait Gallery opened its doors on the 4th of April 1896, marking a historic moment as arguably the first national public gallery in the world dedicated exclusively to portraits. Before this date, no other institution had claimed the singular mission of collecting images of historically important British people regardless of the artist's fame. The gallery was established through the persistent efforts of Philip Stanhope, the 5th Earl Stanhope, who first proposed the idea in 1846 as a Member of Parliament. It took three attempts and the approval of Queen Victoria to finally secure the necessary funds, with the House of Commons setting aside £2000 to launch the project. The gallery's first portrait, the Chandos portrait of William Shakespeare, was donated by Lord Ellesmere, a founder trustee, and remains one of the most recognizable images of the playwright despite lingering uncertainty about its authenticity. The collection was designed to prioritize the significance of the sitter over the artistic merit of the creator, a philosophy that allowed for a diverse range of works including photographs, caricatures, and sculptures alongside traditional paintings.
A Century of Relocation
For the first four decades of its existence, the gallery was a nomadic institution, moving through various locations in London before finding a permanent home. The initial thirteen years were spent at 29 Great George Street, Westminster, where the collection grew from 57 items to 208 and visitor numbers surged from 5,300 to 34,500. In 1869, the collection moved to Exhibition Road, but a fire in those buildings forced a relocation to the Bethnal Green Museum in 1885. This location proved unsuitable due to its distance from the West End, condensation issues, and a lack of waterproofing. The gallery finally settled at its current site on St Martin's Place, adjacent to the National Gallery, after philanthropist William Henry Alexander donated £60,000 and another £20,000 to fund the construction. The building, faced in Portland stone and designed by architect Ewan Christian, was completed by Shillitoe & Son. Both Christian and the gallery's first director, George Scharf, died shortly before the doors opened to the public in 1896.
The Arctic Room Tragedy
On a quiet day in February 1909, the gallery witnessed a shocking murder-suicide in a room known as the Arctic Room. John Tempest Dawson, aged 70, shot his 58-year-old wife, Nannie Caskie, from behind with a revolver before turning the weapon on himself and dying instantly. His wife died in hospital several hours later. Both were American nationals who had lived in Hove for around 10 years, and evidence at the inquest suggested that Dawson, a wealthy and well-travelled man, was suffering from a persecutory delusion. The incident remained largely hidden from public view until 2010, when the Gallery's archive was put online, revealing a personal account of the event by James Donald Milner, the Assistant Director at the time. This dark chapter in the gallery's history stands in stark contrast to its mission of celebrating British life, yet it serves as a reminder of the human stories that sometimes intersect with the walls of great institutions.
During the Second World War, the collections were stored at Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire, along with pieces from the Royal Collection and paintings from Speaker's House in the Palace of Westminster, ensuring their survival through the conflict. The gallery expanded significantly in the 20th century, with the first extension funded by Lord Duveen in 1933, creating a wing by architect Sir Richard Allison on a site previously occupied by St George's Barracks. A second extension, the Ondaatje Wing, opened in 2000, designed by Edward Jones and Jeremy Dixon. This wing occupies a narrow space of land between the two 19th-century buildings and is notable for its immense, two-storey escalator which takes visitors to the earliest part of the collection, the Tudor portraits. In 2008, the gallery received its largest single donation to date, a £5m gift from the US billionaire Randy Lerner, and in 2012, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, announced the gallery as one of her official patronages.
Protest and Refurbishment
In October 2019, a group of semi-naked environmental campaigners drenched themselves in fake oil in the Ondaatje Wing main hall as part of a protest against BP's sponsorship of a collection of pieces in the gallery. The protest performance piece, entitled Crude Truth, involved a clothed protester reciting a monologue calling for arts organisations to sever ties with companies funding extinction. Three activists covered in black liquid lay down for about five minutes on a plastic sheet before standing up again, wiping themselves down with towels, and cleaning up after themselves. The action passed uninterrupted and was applauded by onlookers. This event preceded a major programme of refurbishment known as Inspiring People, which led to the gallery's closure from 2020 to 2023. The project cost £41 million, was designed by architect Jamie Fobert and Purcell, and added new galleries, learning spaces, restaurants, and a public forecourt. The gallery's main entrance was moved and features three new bronze doors which carry 45 portraits of un-named women, drawn by Tracey Emin.
Reopening and Recognition
The gallery was reopened by the Princess of Wales on the 20th of June 2023, marking the end of a three-year closure. She met Sir Paul McCartney, whose photography exhibition was the first major show in the new space, and viewed the Portrait of Omai by Sir Joshua Reynolds, which the gallery had just acquired jointly with the Getty Museum in Los Angeles for £50 million. The gallery reopened to the public on the 22nd of June, and in 2024, the Inspiring People project was short-listed for the RIBA Stirling prize. The new Blavatnik Wing on the gallery's first floor contains nine galleries hosting more than one hundred years of British portraits, and the gift from the Blavatnik Family Foundation was described as the most significant in the gallery's history. The refurbishment included a complete redisplay of the collection from the Tudors to the present, the creation of new public spaces, and a more welcoming visitor entrance.
Founders and Directors
The three people largely responsible for the founding of the National Portrait Gallery are commemorated with busts over the former main entrance on St Martin's Place. At the centre is Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl Stanhope, flanked to his left and right by his supporters Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, and Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle became a trustee after the death of Ellesmere in 1857. The gallery has been guided by a succession of directors since its inception, beginning with Sir George Scharf from 1857 to 1895. Subsequent directors included Sir Lionel Cust, Charles Holmes, James Milner, and Roy Strong, among others. The current director, Victoria Siddall, took over in 2024, following a period of interim leadership by Michael Elliott. The gallery is an executive non-departmental public body of the UK Government, sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and operates as an exempt charity under English law.
Busts and Digital Rights
In addition to the busts of the three founders over the entrance, the exterior of two of the original 1896 buildings are decorated with stone busts of eminent portrait artists, biographical writers, and historians. These busts, sculpted by Frederick R. Thomas, portray figures such as James Granger, William Faithorne, Edmund Lodge, Thomas Fuller, The Earl of Clarendon, Horace Walpole, Hans Holbein the Younger, Sir Anthony van Dyck, Sir Peter Lely, Sir Godfrey Kneller, Louis François Roubiliac, William Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and Sir Francis Chantrey. In 2009, the gallery sent a demand letter alleging breach of copyright against a Wikipedia editor who downloaded thousands of high-resolution reproductions of public domain paintings. The gallery claimed copyright in the digital images, but in 2012, it licensed 53,000 low-resolution images under a Creative Commons licence, making them available free of charge for non-commercial use. By 2012, 100,000 images, around a third of the gallery's collection, had been digitised.