8th July - 19th November 2006
2nd Floor - Galleries 1, 2 and 3
A portrait is a painting, photograph or other likeness of a
real person. It does not necessarily have to be an exact
resemblance but the sitter should be identifiable, even if only
by some attribute or recognisable feature. Traditionally,
portraits stressed the status, power, taste, good-looks and other
positive qualities of the person depicted.
Before the invention of photography, paintings were the chief way of capturing ‘likenesses,’ though how close historical portraits were to reality is impossible to say. Nevertheless, we do know that the outcome did not always please the client, generally because it punctured their vanity.
This exhibition uses the Harris’s collection to look at portraits, in all their various guises. Portraits crop up everywhere, from coins and banknotes, on glass and ceramics, to traditionally flattering paintings and rather less flattering cartoons. The Harris’s collection is particularly rich in portraits, and the show will include some of our best loved paintings such as Dorette and Pauline in the Yellow Dress, as well as contemporary work such as Hannah Starkey’s enigmatic photograph Untitled, 1996.
2nd Floor - Galleries 1, 2 and 3
Harold Knight, Girl Reading
Frank Auerbach, Julia III
Before the invention of photography, paintings were the chief way of capturing ‘likenesses,’ though how close historical portraits were to reality is impossible to say. Nevertheless, we do know that the outcome did not always please the client, generally because it punctured their vanity.
This exhibition uses the Harris’s collection to look at portraits, in all their various guises. Portraits crop up everywhere, from coins and banknotes, on glass and ceramics, to traditionally flattering paintings and rather less flattering cartoons. The Harris’s collection is particularly rich in portraits, and the show will include some of our best loved paintings such as Dorette and Pauline in the Yellow Dress, as well as contemporary work such as Hannah Starkey’s enigmatic photograph Untitled, 1996.
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