Lecture by Kim Sajet, Director, National Portrait Gallery
There are three people and a world of ideas involved in a portrait. The first is the sitter, who especially if they are a public celebrity, has a vested and sometimes uncompromising opinion on how to control their image. Then there is the artist, who wants to build his or her own legacy by presenting to the public a unique artistic vision. And the third is us, the audience, who remain long after the sitter and artist have left. Making each picture contemporary, no matter when it was taken, how we approach a portrait tells us perhaps more about ourselves as anything else. In conjunction with National Portrait Gallery’s Yousuf Karsh: American Portraits exhibition, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, Kim Sajet, will talk about the dynamic relationships that lie at the heart of visual biography.
