National Portrait Gallery

Marilyn Monroe, by Cecil Beaton, 22 February 1956, NPG x40269, © Cecil Beaton Archive / Condé Nast In celebration of the Hollywood star’s 100th birthday and in association with the Marilyn Monroe estate, Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait will explore the life, career and legacy of Marilyn Monroe through portraits created by some of the greatest photographers and artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Bringing together works by Andy Warhol, Pauline Boty, Marlene Dumas, James Gill, Rosalyn Drexler and Audrey Flack, alongside over 20 era-defining photographers, including Cecil Beaton, Philippe Halsman, Bernard of Hollywood, André de Dienes, Eve Arnold, Inge Morath, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Milton Greene, Sam Shaw, Richard Avedon and George Barris, the exhibition will foreground Monroe’s collaborative approach to image making and her creative agency. The exhibition will also include personal belongings such as books, scripts and clothes to enrich understanding of the woman behind the image. From the earliest ‘cheesecake’ pin-ups made when she was a young model named Norma-Jeane, to the most poignant final photographs taken on the beach in Malibu in 1962, Marilyn Monroe was one of the most photographed people in the world. A defining presence in popular culture, she captivated audiences with performances in much loved films such as Some Like it Hot. In the 1950s and 60s, Marilyn Monroe’s popularity secured her starring roles in the work of artists including Richard Hamilton, Pauline Boty and Andy Warhol, whose ‘Marilyn’ portraits are among the most highly prized works of art in the world. She continues to fascinate artists, drawn to her iconic presence and fascinating life.

Throughout the Gallery Entrance Hall, Rooms 5, 9, 14, 16, 17, 22, 27, 29 and 33 Free One of the founding principles of the National Portrait Gallery is to collect portraits with a focus on ‘the celebrity of the person represented rather than the merit of the artist’. In a reversal of this approach, Artists First: Contemporary Perspectives on Portraiture foregrounds the artistic vision of nine contemporary artists who were invited to create work in dialogue with the Gallery's permanent Collection. Newly commissioned works by Helen Cammock, Giana De Dier, Mary Evans, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Ravelle Pillay, Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley, Soheila Sokhanvari and Charmaine Watkiss are displayed throughout the building to reclaim untold narratives and connect past and present histories. Presented in a range of media – installation, textile, painting, photomontage, drawing and film – their works place contemporary art at the heart of the Gallery to challenge the roots of portraiture and rethink its potential for today and for the future.

Catherine Opie: To Be Seen will showcase photographic portraits by the American artist Catherine Opie. The exhibition, curated in collaboration with the artist, will be the first major museum exhibition of her work in the UK. Opie’s work questions representations of home, intimacy and family, politics, identity and power structures. Over the past 30 years, Opie has explored and positioned the portrait in numerous contexts and visual formats. Conceptually rigorous and formally executed, her photographs make visible queer communities, mentors and collaborators, children, surfers, high school footballers, political crowds and Opie herself through self-portraiture. Works featured in the exhibition will span her first major work, Being and Having (1991), her portraits of LGBTQ+ friends inspired by court painter Hans Holbein, through to her Baroque-like portraits of artists. Portraits work in dialogue with one another to create new narratives, challenging viewers to reflect on the figures most commonly portrayed in art and those who go unseen. In addition to this exhibition, a series of interventions will place Opie’s photographs in dialogue with the permanent Collection, probing further representation in the context of the National Portrait Gallery.

Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting is the UK’s most comprehensive museum exhibition to focus on the artist's works on paper, including some works seen on display for the first time. Lucian Freud (1922-2011) achieved recognition as one of Britain's foremost figurative painters, celebrated for his clinically raw and intensely observed portraits and nude studies. Freud’s working practice, artistic techniques and processes, alongside his dedication to the genre of portraiture all contribute to his popularity as an artist. The exhibition explores the artist’s lifelong preoccupation with the human face and figure from the 1930s to the early 21st century, focusing on Freud’s mastery of drawing in all its forms – from pencil, pen, and ink to charcoal and etching. In addition, a carefully selected group of important paintings will reveal the dynamic dialogue between his practice on paper and on canvas. Ahead of the exhibition in 2026, the National Portrait Gallery has acquired 12 new works from the estate of Lucian Freud. Among these are 8 etchings, including a trial proof, which are the first of their medium by Freud to enter the National Portrait Gallery’s Collection. One of the newly acquired etchings, which depicts the artist’s fashion-designer daughter, Bella Freud, is featured in the new exhibition, alongside archive research and previously unseen materials. Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting is the first exhibition of Freud’s work at the National Portrait Gallery since the major retrospective Lucian Freud Portraits held in 2012, shortly after his death. Following its run at the National Portrait Gallery, Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting will tour to Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark, from 10 June to 27 September 2026.