![]() ![]() It’s hard to imagine the same decision being made today – but the magnetism of this portrait lives on. So while this conveys a mother’s sheer desperation, it is also a reminder of a time in which artists were important enough to include in the most far-reaching welfare programme in US history. Lange made the portrait, currently showing in Capturing the Moment at London’s Tate Modern, while an employee of the US government – she was one of many artists who were paid to document the realities of the Depression as part of New Deal programmes. It has become a touchstone image of 20th-century America, immediately evoking the gritty desolation and human cost of the Great Depression. This iconic portrait of Florence Owens Thompson is both. Others tell the story of a time or place. Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California by Dorothea Lange, 1936 Some portraits are a window into the souls of their subjects. Tate Photo: Tate (Jai Monaghan) Photograph: Jai Monaghan/Dorothea Lange Violeta Sofia, artist and photographerĭorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, 1936, printed c.1950. It signifies the reclaiming of identity and the celebration of womanhood. ![]() Sulter captures the essence of female strength and reimagines it through the giving of a name and the act of clothing the subject. What resonates is its sense of growth and empowerment. It is a powerful representation of the women who have shaped my life. As I gaze at Sulter’s portrait, I can’t help seeing my own family reflected in the image: my mother, my aunts, my grandmother. This photograph pays homage to Marie-Guillemine Benoist, an 18th-century French artist who uplifted black female figurative art during a time of slavery. It’s Bonnie Greer (“Portrait d’une Negresse”), by Maud Sulter. ![]() And to be a Toyin creation myself, on the walls of the portrait gallery? It’s incredible.” Nicholas Cullinan, NPG directorīonnie Greer (“Portrait d’une Negresse”) by Maud Sulter, 2002 One of my favourite portraits at the National Portrait Gallery is part of the Reframing Narratives exhibition, which celebrates female artists and sitters. Becoming familiar with her images is like having something I missed and wanted in childhood delivered to me now, as an adult. As Smith said: “I know her art will have a tremendous effect on young people because I’m a grown-ass woman and it’s had a tremendous effect on me. It’s also the first work by Toyin to enter a British public collection. Zadie Smith is one of the greatest literary voices of our time and Toyin Ojih Odutola is one of the most exciting artists, so this work is the perfect pairing. Sadie (Zadie Smith) by Toyin Ojih Odutola, 2018-19 This new commission will be shown for the first time at the National Portrait Gallery when it reopens on 22 June. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York The perfect pairing … Sadie by Toyin Ojih Odutola. Alison Smith, National Portrait Gallery chief curator We watch comedian Sid James on TV in Hancock’s Half Hour, but also see what looks like an invitation to the opening of a Henry Moore exhibition, a CND flyer, as well as adverts for remedies for colds, flu and rheumatism on the coffee table. Sid James by Ruskin Spear, 1962 This collage captures both the funny and sad: how life is made up of grand aspirations and messy little domestic settings. Portraits at the precipice of melancholy or mania are the most attractive to me. The hair is manic but orderly, coiled and framing deep, endless concentric circles of eyes – searching, wondering and staring somehow both at us and into the abyss. I am reminded of the gaping mouth of Munch’s Scream, or the bull in Picasso’s Guernica, given the equine nature of the face. El-Salahi’s work has often delved into the personal and here we see him in a confused, uncertain state of mind. Self-Portrait of Suffering by Ibrahim El-Salahi, 1961 The African modernist El-Salahi studied at the Slade in London in the 1950s and western modernism clearly influenced him. ![]()
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