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Simpson Gallery – 22nd Feb 2019 – 28th Apr 2019

This exhibition focuses on portraiture from the Gallery’s collection and includes a variety of themes including self-portraits, commissioned paintings of wealthy patrons, paintings of famous faces and those of family members recorded and remembered.

A portrait is an artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent of the artist is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, portraiture has always been a popular artform as the artist can delve deeply to reveal the true characteristics of their sitter.

Wealthy upper class patrons often commissioned artists to undertake portraits of themselves, family members, pets and livestock as a symbol of wealth, prosperity and rank. Today portraits are everywhere in the form of ‘selfies’.  We no longer need to commission an artist to record our likeness.  We can do it ourselves and retain full control over how the image is presented to the world through social media.

This exhibition comprises several traditional portrait paintings that increase our understanding and appreciation of the people in them through revealing details about their identity, history, social standing, occupation and character.

Image: Albert Tucker, Maria, 1947, oil on composition board. Gift of Barbara Tucker, 2002.