By Humra Laeeq
In a turn of a 161-year old tradition, the National Portrait Gallery in London will reveal a new liberal face. In a portrait museum that houses the worlds most famous British personalities, a novel attempt will be made to make the term Britons more inclusive. The ones to be displayed at the gallery will no longer be white supremacist personalities who have benefitted from a racial privilege in the acknowledgement of their work. In this new liberal wave, traditionally neglected achievements of black personalities will be honoured as well.
On Friday, gallery director Nicholas Cullinan announced the addition of 37 influential black Britons portraits to the original collection. For Cullinan, these portraits of black British sitters powerfully reflect the diversity of contemporary British achievement in public life. Phillip Prodger, the head of photography shared the sentiment and believed that these works will be seen, enjoyed, and celebrated for generations to come”.
The worlds first portrait gallery
The National Portrait Gallery is world’s first portrait gallery and opened in London in 1856. It houses a collection of portraits of important and influential British personalities. Selection of personalities is on the basis of the significance of the portrait bearer and not that of the artist. The collection varies over photographs, caricatures, paintings, drawings and even sculptures. The first personality to be birthed in the gallery was its best-known Chandos portrait, William Shakespeare. The gallery is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport of the United Kingdom.
The documentary behind the portraits
The portraits were originally shot by Simon Frederick for the BBC Two documentary Black Is The New Black. He has now donated the entire portfolio to the gallery. The documentary records the influential narratives of exceptional figures from politics, business, sport and science on being black and British, and how they got where they are. On 24 August, Frederick will be holding a talk at the gallery on the impact the gallerys 1840 painting The Anti-Slavery Society Convention by Benjamin Haydon had on him as a child and how it inspired him to create Black Is The New Black. The images will be a part of the primary collection and will be on display from November 2018.
Black personalities at the gallery
The black personalities that are currently housed at the gallery have diverse accomplishments in their respective fields. There is a portrait of the English actress and supermodel Naomi Campbell, who established herself among the top three most demanded models of the late 1980s and the 1990s. The first black leader of a British trade union, Lord Bill Morris is also a part of the collection. Morris currently serves on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights in the Labour Party. Other portraits include those of songwriter Laura Mvula, comedian cum entertainer Sir Lenny Henry, journalist Sir Trevor McDonald and Britain’s first black Archbishop, John Sentamu. It is now the gallery’s biggest acquisition of Afro-Caribbean sitters.
One step closer
In essence, adding the portraits of black personalities does not add much to the cause of black struggle. It does not ensure a radical erasure of any racially directed inequality or prejudice. However, what it does ensure is inclusion through the acknowledgement of contribution and removal of the prejudiced eye. Once the world sees the rich mix of racially diverse people having contributions that are unfiltered on the basis of race, we are one step closer to making the world a more tolerable and liberal space.
Featured Image Source: Flickr