McEleny won more medals than any other British swimmer at Atlanta in 1996. Paraplegic, she has struggled against ill-health to achieve her sporting success and was the flag bearer for the opening ...

Born in Belfast, Fraser was educated at the Royal Academical Institution and Queen's University, becoming a consultant at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children in 1927. Fraser volunteered in ...

Get creative with art workshops at the National Portrait Gallery. From photography and collage, to painting and pen, learn new skills and develop techniques across a variety of mediums. Led by artists ...

The Reference Collection is held in the Heinz Archive and Library and contains more than 70,000 portraits of important and lesser known figures in British history. The majority of these portraits are ...

Bulgarian-born writer; studied Chemistry in Vienna before emigrating to England in 1938; wrote essays, plays, autobiography and a study of crowds, but made his name with the novel, Die Blendung (1935) ...

Olaudah Equiano was born in Essaka, in what is now southeastern Nigeria. He was kidnapped into slavery at the age of eleven and put to work for a number of different masters in America, the West ...

Younghusband's interests lay in problems of the poor, and whilst a full-time lecturer at the London School of Economics (1933-57), she devoted her spare time to the Citizens' Advice Bureaux, care ...

Jacob Ferdinand Voet was a Flemish painter who made his career in Rome. Little is known of his early life in Antwerp. He arrived in Rome in 1663, probably via France. Voet became a much sought-after ...

Mary Moser trained with her father George Michael Moser, a Swiss engraver, medallist and a leading figure at the St Martin's Lane Academy, as well as the first keeper of the Royal Academy. His ...

As a child, Dr Crotch, the musician and composer, was known as 'the musical phenomenon of Norwich'. He began his professional career as organist of Christ Church, Oxford, at the age of fifteen, and ...

Gerrit van Honthorst was a Dutch painter from Utrecht. He travelled to Italy in 1616, where he copied the naturalism and eccentricities of Caravaggio. Honthorst spent four years painting in Rome after ...

Booking required for school groups only. Please see the School visits page. The Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award makes a welcome return to the National Portrait Gallery for 2024. The prestigious ...