The Portrait Now was an exhibition of contemporary portraiture held in 1993 to 1994 at the

National Portrait Gallery, London The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was arguably the first national public gallery dedicated to portraits in the world when it ...

. Among many others it included portraits by Michael Andrews,

Frank Auerbach Frank Helmut Auerbach (born 29 April 1931) is a German-British painter. Born in Germany, he has been a naturalised British subject since 1947. He is considered one of the leading names in the School of London, with fellow artists Francis Bacon ...

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...

Tony Bevan Tony Bevan (born 1951) is a British painter, known for his psychologically charged images of people at the edge of respectable society. Biography Bevan was born in Bradford, Yorkshire. He studied at Bradford School of Art from 1968 to 1971, fol ...

Chuck Close Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits using a very l ...

Jim Dine Jim Dine (born June 16, 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American artist whose œuvre extends over sixty years. Dine’s work includes painting, drawing, printmaking (in many forms including lithographs, etchings, gravure, intaglio, woodcuts, l ...

, Peter Edwards,

Stephen Finer Stephen Finer is a London-based artist, active since the 1980s. Work Finer participated in "British Art from the Arts Council Collection 1940–80" at the Hayward Gallery, 'Collazione Inglese ll' at the Venice Biennale and was in the touring exh ...

Lucian Freud Lucian Michael Freud (; 8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewis ...

, Richard Hamilton,

Howard Hodgkin Sir Gordon Howard Eliott Hodgkin (6 August 1932 – 9 March 2017) was a British painter and printmaker. His work is most often associated with abstraction. Early life Gordon Howard Eliot Hodgkin was born on 6 August 1932 in Hammersmith, Lond ...

David Hockney David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists o ...

Panayiotis Kalorkoti Panayiotis Kalorkoti (born 11 April 1957, Cyprus) is a British artist. He works primarily in acrylics and watercolour, and has also produced drawings, etchings, screenprints, lithographs and monotypes. His work is figurative and features bri ...

Jeff Koons Jeffrey Lynn Koons (; born January 21, 1955) is an American artist recognized for his work dealing with popular culture and his sculptures depicting everyday objects, including balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror-Surface fi ...

, Leon Kossoff,

Alice Neel Alice Neel (January 28, 1900 – October 13, 1984) was an American visual artist, who was known for her portraits depicting friends, family, lovers, poets, artists, and strangers. Her paintings have an expressionistic use of line and color, psy ...

Nam June Paik Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super h ...

David Salle David Salle (born September 28, 1952; last name pronounced "Sally") is a Pictures Generation American painter, printmaker, photographer, and stage designer. Salle was born in Norman, Oklahoma, and lives and works in East Hampton, New York. He ear ...

Julian Schnabel Julian Schnabel (born October 26, 1951) is an American painter and filmmaker. In the 1980s, he received international attention for his "plate paintings" — with broken ceramic plates set onto large-scale paintings. Since the 1990s, he has been ...

and

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...

. It presented a decade of portraiture focusing on the forms of sculpture and painting, however it also included some video pieces. A catalogue of the same name by Robin Gibson was published to coincide with the exhibition.

Subjects

Varied subjects included self-portraits: Koons, Neel, Penck, less known figures and some well known names:

Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...

by Warhol,

Marlene Dietrich Marie Magdalene "Marlene" DietrichBorn as Maria Magdalena, not Marie Magdalene, according to Dietrich's biography by her daughter, Maria Riva ; however Dietrich's biography by Charlotte Chandler cites "Marie Magdalene" as her birth name . (, ; ...

by Finer,

President Mitterrand President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

Organ Organ may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a part of an organism Musical instruments * Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone ** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument ** Hammond ...

Archbishop Desmond Tutu Desmond Mpilo Tutu (7 October 193126 December 2021) was a South African Anglican bishop and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbisho ...

by Marisol,

Seamus Heaney Seamus Justin Heaney (; 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Edwards Edwards may refer to: People * Edwards (surname) * Edwards family, a prominent family from Chile * Edwards Barham (1937-2014), a former member of the Louisiana State Senate * Edwards Pierrepont (1817–1892), an American attorney, jurist, and or ...

, and "The Smoking Man" a video portrait by Marty St.James.

Publication

*''The Portrait Now.'' London: National Portrait Gallery, 1993. By Robin Gibson. .

References

1993 in London 1994 in London 1993 in art Art exhibitions in London Portrait art National Portrait Gallery, London {{UK-art-display-stub