Simon Schama’s The Face Of Britain

Historian Simon Schama is to join forces with National Portrait Gallery curators to create five intriguing new temporary displays within its permanent collections. Staged throughout the Gallery, portraits from across the Collection will be displayed for the first time by theme rather than chronology, taking a long view of the history of British portraits in each room.

To coincide with the broadcast and publication in the autumn of a new five-part TV series and book, the display Simon Schama’s The Face of Britain (16 September 2015-4 January 2016), has been developed in partnership with the BBC. The collaboration also involves Oxford Film and TV who are making the television series for BBC Two and Viking / Penguin Random House who will publish the book.

The displays, chapters and episodes will reflect Simon Schama’s innovative and challenging exploration of the development, character and meanings of British portraiture. Planned with the Gallery’s team of curators led by Chief Curator Dr Tarnya Cooper, each room in the display will comprise a cross-period selection in various media and, like each chapter and episode, will explore one of the following themes: Power, Love, Fame, People and Self. The displays will be integrated into a free gallery trail with between eight to twelve works in each of the five rooms, one room for each theme.

Visitors to the Gallery, readers of the book and viewers of the series will be able to see a wide range of British portraits which cross the centuries, so Sir Winston Churchill and Baroness Thatcher might be seen alongside Elizabeth I (Power); Kenelm and Venetia Digby, with Rossetti and Jane Morris, a Lewis Carroll portrait of Alice Liddell and John Lennon and Yoko One (Love); Francis Drake and Thomas Carlyle with Amy Winehouse (Fame); a group of Suffragettes alongside boxers (People); and a self-portrait room combining Sir Joshua Reynolds, Hogarth and Self created by Marc Quinn from his own blood.