National Portrait Gallery - Year 10 

National Portrait Gallery - Year 10 

The Year 10 GCSE artists are focusing on portraits in their coursework this term so we spent a day exploring the National Portrait Gallery in London. The NPG has been closed for 2 years for a major makeover so it was delightful for the Culture Vulture teachers to revisit an old friend and see its collection presented so well with expanded display spaces and more informative presentation, and to introduce our students to it all for the first time. It is a very different experience to see art closeup in real life and experience its true scale and details rather than on a tiny phone screen or a book. As we hoped, the students were engaged and intense in their discussions about what makes good art or art they like or don't like, and why, as they encountered everything from Tudor portraits of Henry 8th to the selfportrait sculpture by Marc Quinn made of his own frozen blood.

Watch this space for the portraits they create inspired by what they saw. Does anyone have a glass display freezer we can borrow?!... If you find yourself at Trafalgar Square, do pop in and have a look for yourself. The NPG is on the side of the National Gallery there. Both are free to go into - as people of the UK we co-own a vast art collection, so make sure you go and see it! PDB