Icons and Identities

by Tanya Bentley (Editor), Rab MacGibbon (Introduction)

Drawing on the outstanding collection of the National Portrait Gallery, this volume celebrates the variety and complexity of portraiture The National Portrait Gallery holds the world’s most extensive collection of a museum of people, a gallery of stories and ideas, and a home of artistic masterpieces. Icons and Identities draws together icons from Shakespeare to Audrey Hepburn alongside less well-known sitters that provide insight into the representation of identity in portraits. It also includes some intriguing surprises to reflect the diversity of the National Portrait Gallery’s collection and to introduce audiences around the world to exceptional portraits of many kinds.

Icons and Identities shows how artists, working across mediums, have revealed the visually stimulating and intellectually vibrant tradition of portrait making. The book is structured around a series of key themes and each section includes a selection of works from a range of periods.

Artists include : Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, Andy Warhol, Marlene Dumas and Shirin Neshat.

143 pages, Hardcover

Published August 10, 2021

Reviews

[Andrea Engle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A catalogue to the eponymous exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery, London, this collection of portraits is simply stunning … each portrait is accompanied by a thumbnail biography of the sitter and the artist … presented in a series of categories: Fame, Power, Love and Loss, Identity, Innovation, and Self-Portrait … visually superb …

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Went to the exhibition in Canberra, and also wound up writing an essay on the exhibition. The book shows the portraits that are in the exhibition, notes about the sitter and artist, and why and how the exhibition was put together. The choice of portraits were great and the idea of displaying them under theme rather than styles or time made the exhibition more interesting.