The National Portrait Gallery of the UK had lent a large number of terrific portraits to the National Portrait Gallery of the US of A, and they are all going to be packed up on Tuesday. You will have missed a great exhibit of portraits of kings and mistresses, politicians and entertainers. I think I am going to get the catalog.
There are portraits of Henry VIII, Richard III, Queen Mary and Mary Queen of Scots, Victoria (in India looking quite rotund, working on her boxes), Elizabeth I (very big portrait, but not as big as the one of Judy Dench) and II, Churchill (understated), Blair (with very blue eyes), Thatcher (I am sure she likes this one), and more. Along with some pretty ladies (such as Lady Hamilton, Sam Taylor-Wood (yes, that's a lady) and _______, the most attractive of them all. There are several other ladies, reputed to be the prettiest of their time, who clearly were not.
Authors? Yes, including Oscar Wilde smirking, D.H. Lawrence sulking, T.S. Eliot (of course he was from St. Louis) in an abstract mode, Henry James looking very serious, Shakespeare (with an earing in his ear, but maybe it's not Shakespeare), Charles Dickens looking quite young and feminine, Charles Darwin looking very much the patriarch, and many others. Musicians? Yes. Actors? Of course.
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