National Gallery
The National Gallery
Trafalgar Square
London
Greater London
WC2N 5DN
England
Website
National Gallery website
National Gallery online shop
Telephone
020 7747 2885
Fax
020 7747 2423
One of the greatest collections of European painting in the world. These pictures belong to the public and admission to see them is free.
Venue Type:
Gallery, Museum
Additional info
The Gallery holds regular events given or interpreted in British Sign Language (BSL).
On the last Saturday of every month the ‘Art Through Words’ programme for blind and partially sighted visitors examines one painting in the collection in detail.
The National Gallery’s permanent collection spans the period from about 1250 to 1900 and consists of Western European paintings.
Collection details
Fine Art, Personalities, Religion, Social History
Key artists and exhibits
- 'The Wilton Diptych'
- Jan van Eyck 'The Arnolfini Portrait'
- Paolo Uccello 'The Battle of San Romano'
- Piero della Francesca 'The Baptism of Christ'
- Sandro Botticelli 'Venus and Mars'
- Leonardo da Vinci 'The Virgin of the Rocks'
- Michelangelo 'The Entombment'
- Giovanni Bellini 'The Doge Leonardo Loredan'
- Raphael 'The Madonna of the Pinks'
- Jan Gossaert 'The Adoration of the Kings'
- Titian 'Bacchus and Ariadne'
- Hans Holbein the Younger 'The Ambassadors'
- Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 'The Supper at Emmaus'
- Peter Paul Rubens 'Samson and Delilah'
- Anthony Van Dyck, 'Equestrian Portrait of Charles I'
- Rembrandt 'Self Portrait at the Age of 34'
- Claude 'Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula'
- Diego Velázquez 'The Rokeby Venus'
- Johannes Vermeer 'A Young Woman standing at a Virginal'
- Canaletto 'The Stonemason's Yard'
- Thomas Gainsborough 'Mr and Mrs Andrews'
- George Stubbs 'Whistlejacket'
- François-Hubert Drouais 'Madame de Pompadour at her Tambour Frame'
- John Constable, 'The Hay Wain'
- Joseph Mallord William Turner 'The Fighting Temeraire'
- Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres 'Madame Moitessier'
- Claude-Oscar Monet 'Bathers at La Grenouillère'
- Georges Seurat 'Bathers at Asnières'
- Vincent Van Gogh 'Sunflowers'
- Paul Cezanne, 'Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses)'
Vermeer and Music: The Art of Love and Leisure
For the first time the National Gallery’s two paintings by Vermeer, Young Woman Standing at a Virginal and Young Woman Seated at a Virginal will be brought together with Vermeer’s Guitar Player, which is currently on exceptional loan from the Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood House.
These beautiful and evocative paintings by Vermeer will be displayed with works by his contemporaries and juxtaposed with musical instruments and songbooks from the same period.
Suitable for
- Any age
Admission
Free.
Website
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/vermeer-and-music
Vermeer and Music: The Art of Love and Leisure
For the first time the National Gallery’s two paintings by Vermeer, Young Woman Standing at a Virginal and Young Woman Seated at a Virginal will be brought together with Vermeer’s Guitar Player, which is currently on exceptional loan from the Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood House.
These beautiful and evocative paintings by Vermeer will be displayed with works by his contemporaries and juxtaposed with musical instruments and songbooks from the same period.
Suitable for
- Any age
Admission
£8, concessions available
Website
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/vermeer-and-music
Michael Landy: Saints Alive
The saints are more often associated with traditional sacred art than with contemporary work, but Michael Landy, 2013 Rootstein Hopkins Associate Artist in residence at the National Gallery, has been inspired to re-visit the subject for this exhibition.
The large-scale sculptures will consist of fragments of National Gallery paintings cast in three dimensions and assembled with one of Landy’s artistic hallmarks – refuse.
Landy has scoured car boot sales and flea markets accumulating old machinery, cogs and wheels to construct his sculptures. And it doesn’t stop there; he extends his interest in recycling to bringing religious iconography to life for a 21st century audience.
Suitable for
- Any age
Where
Sunley Room
Admission
Free.
Website
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/michael-landy-saints-alive
The Portrait in Vienna 1900
The striking paintings of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka star in this major exhibition which examines the central role portraiture played in Viennese painting and the upheaval in the tradition that marked the years around 1900.
Exploring Viennese portraiture during the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867–1918), a powerful multi-national empire, this ground-breaking exhibition shows how the imperial and bourgeois traditions of 19th century art were both sustained and broken-apart by the innovations of avant-garde artists.
The exhibition traces the distinctive flourishing of modern art in Vienna in the years before 1918 which saw the end of the First World War, the collapse of the empire, and the deaths of both Klimt and Schiele.
Suitable for
- Any age
Admission
Please see web site for admission charges.
Website
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/the-portrait-in-vienna-1900
Birth of a Collection: The Barber Institute of Fine Arts and The National Gallery
The Barber Institute of Fine Arts at the University of Birmingham, a research partner of the National Gallery, is celebrating its 80th anniversary with a year-long programme of activity in 2013.
As part of these commemorations ‘Birth of a Collection’ explores the 12 superb Old Master and 19th-century paintings Professor Thomas Bodkin acquired for the Henry Barber Trust whilst in post as the first director (1935–52).
Suitable for
- Any age
Admission
Free.
Website
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/birth-of-a-collection
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