Photo: londondrum.comUseful things to know before your visit
Address: National Portrait Gallery, St. Martin’s Place (just off Trafalgar Square) WC2H 0HE. Telephone: 0207 306 0055. Website: npg.org
How much do the tickets cost?
The National Portrait Gallery is free, but temporary exhibitions might cost extra.
What are the opening hours?
Opening times are 10.30am to 6pm (Mon-Thu and Sun); 10.30am to 9pm (Fri-Sat). Last entry is 30 minutes before closing time.
How much time do you need?
A typical visit to the National Portrait Gallery takes 2 hours.
Which buses go to the National Portrait Gallery?
Bus routes 3, 6, 9, 11, 13, 15, 23, 24, 87, 91, 139 and 176 all stop close by.
Which is the closest train station?
The nearest station is Charing Cross, which connects with the Bakerloo and Northern lines. It also serves National Rail trains. It only takes three minutes to walk to the National Portrait Gallery.
Which other attractions are nearby?
These attractions are all within 15 minutes walk of the National Portrait Gallery: National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, Nelson’s Column, Leicester Square, Benjamin Franklin House, Chinatown, Piccadilly Circus, Covent Garden, Household Cavalry Museum, Horse Guards, Cleopatra’s Needle, Transport Museum, Banqueting House, Downing Street and St. James’s Park.
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Email My review of the National Portrait Gallery
You don’t know how famous you really are until after your dead. Most of us will just get a few tears and some ham sandwiches round our family’s house, whilst others might get five lines in the paper and a mention on the news. If you’re lucky then you’ll get a statue for the pigeons to sit on. But the truly famous ones end up in here. This is how you know you made it – if they put your face on display at the National Portrait Gallery.
Photo: londondrum.comThis is the art gallery that I always recommend if you aren’t particularly into art because it’s half-art and half-history. It’s like walking through an illustrated edition of Who’s Who with portraits, paintings, sculptures and caricatures of famous figures from the last six centuries of British history – everyone from kings and queens and politicians to Noble Prize-winning scientists, writers, architects and artists.
It’s a bit of a mish-mash of styles because they choose the pictures based on the fame of the sitter rather than the skills of the artist. So you get unfinished pictures, scribbles and scrawls alongside accomplished oil paintings by Hogarth and Reynolds.
Tudors, Stuarts & English Civil War
Photo: londondrum.comThe Tudor room has all the people you remember from school. There’s a huge preparatory study of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger and famous pictures of Anne Boleyn, Bloody Mary and Elizabeth I. You also get Tudor politicians like Thomas More, Thomas Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell, plus early explorers like Walter Raleigh and Francis Drake.
The famous painting of Shakespeare has been tucked away around a corner (I thought they would have made more of it – maybe put it in a bullet-proof box like the Mona Lisa).
Photo: londondrum.comThen you’re into the Civil War period with big pictures of Cromwell, Charles I and Charles II. They’ve ditched the frilly ruffs by this time and entered the era of big wigs so it’s hard to tell everyone apart – Isaac Newton, Samuel Johnson and Christopher Wren all look like High Court judges.
Georgian, Victorian & Edwardian portraits
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The highlight in this section is the huge Coronation painting of Queen Victoria and a lively scene inside the House of Commons. Another room accommodates everyone from Wellington and Nelson to court composers like Handel and Bach. They also sneak in a few Americans like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin to tell the story of the Empire.
Photo: londondrum.comYou’re centuries into our nation’s story by this time and still the famous names keep coming… poets and painters like Byron, Coleridge, Turner and Keats, and engineers and inventors like James Watt, Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
20th & 21st-century portraits
As soon as you hit the tail end of the 20th-century fame makes way for celebrity. Apparently there used to be a rule that you had to be dead for at least a decade before they honoured you with a picture but they seem to have relaxed that rule now, because it’s all sports stars and singers who appeared on Top Of The Pops.
Photo: londondrum.comThere’s also a very abrupt change in the style of painting. In the old days the aim of the game was to create a good likeness, and the artist sat their subject in a pose which told us something about their character – were they a great thinker? sedate and serious? feared and respected? But nowadays they hardly bother telling us anything about the subject at all. It’s become less about the sitter and much more about them. They’d much rather the viewer walk away marvelling at their skills instead. The result is that half of the portraits are unrecognisable without the placard attached.
Maybe that’s why there are so many photographs in the 20th-century section, because we’ve lost the art of portrait painting.
I’ve ranked the National Portrait Gallery as ★9 in the galleries I rate most highly in London
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What do you think? (5)
Ask a question, or share your experience of the National Portrait Gallery
Sarah I adore the Tudor gallery with pictures of Elizabeth I and her contemporaries. It is the most intriguing period in English history, and it’s nice to be able to read about it and then put a face to a name. (reply)
Freda Is it any cheaper for seniors. Is there a discount for 67 year old. (reply)
Craig Hi Freda, it’s free entry for everyone. You don’t have to pay to get inside. (reply)
Tomas When is the gallery re-opening again after its refurbishment? (reply)
Craig Hi Tomas. There’s no firm date at the moment, but they’re expecting it to re-open again sometime in 2023. (reply)
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