FACES AND FORTUNES

British Portraiture Through The Ages

Portraiture has always occupied a special place in British art: London's National Portrait Gallery was the first of its kind in Europe, and even in this age of the camera phone and digital imaging, where everyone can capture a likeness at the casual touch of a button, the painted portrait retains its special magic.

Today's portrait painters may face superficially different challenges from those of former ages, but they are still painting towards the same goals: to produce images of the face and body which will also reveal something of personality, experiences and beliefs. Portraits echo life; they also celebrate individuality, perpetuate ideals of beauty and set the expectations for the trappings of power and prestige within societies and across cultural boundaries.

From witches' effigy to boardroom commission, intimate miniature to public monument, pictures of people have engaged and challenged the finest artistic minds and talents. This dayschool examines some of the results of that relentless pursuit of personality, tracing the not-so-gentle art of British high and low society portraiture from Hogarth, Reynolds and Gainsborough across the centuries to Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.