This autumn, London’s National Portrait Gallery will display work by a group of contemporary creators recontextualising the collection for the modern day. Eight artists have been invited to ‘redress and shine a light on some of the stories of individuals and communities that aren’t yet told on [their] walls’ of the gallery, whose six-decade collection traces back to the Tudor era. National Portrait Gallery director Flavia Frigeri said the exhibition Artists First: Contemporary Perspectives on Portraiture builds on how the institution ‘tells the stories of those who have shaped, and continue to shape our nation’ and supports their aim to ‘[represent] the U.K. today’.
The exhibition will run from 6 September to August 2026 and has been organised with Chanel’s culture fund.
The invited artists will ‘reclaim untold narratives’ in the collection of the gallery, which has aimed to tell Britain’s story through portraiture since its 1856. Among the ‘local champions’ and ‘unsung heroes’ artists will highlight are museum visitors in a silhouette installation by British artist and Slade director Mary Evans, from which portraits will be created and added to the gallery’s main entrance. Turner Prize winner Helen Cammock’s film will begin from the gallery’s archives, collections, and building to discuss ‘presence, absence, and the process of erasure’. British artist Charmaine Watkiss will use her interest in African Caribbean healing traditions to contribute a drawing in response to a 1763 portrait of botanist and physician Hans Sloan, while British Iranian artist Soheila Sokhanvari will show four portraits that celebrate the impact of women in science since the 17th century. Romani artist Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, whose textiles of Roma stories received critical acclaim at last year’s Venice Biennale, will contribute five such works to the History Makers gallery. This celebration is echoed in Panama artist Giana De Dier’s photomontage portraits of current changemakers from Britain’s African Caribbean community. Finally, South African artist Ravelle Pillay will bring paintings responding to colonialism and migration, while American artists Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley will bring a two-channel video probing the historic portrayal of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson and Lady Emma Hamilton.