Tag Archives: London

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A first visit to the National Portrait Gallery

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Our visit to the National Portrait Gallery today was fascinating – plenty of portraits from the Tudors onwards, and the perfect amount of information beside each painting to add another layer to our morning of seeing who was who, and why they were there.

The man above is Jem Wharton (1813 -1856) painted by Liverpool artist William Daniels. This little portrait was on one of the top floors of the National Portrait Gallery, just off from rooms full of huge paintings in lavish detail of various Tudors and members of their courts. What caught my eye was the attitude staring out from the frame, the occupant so watchful of the man who would paint him.

Who was the subject? The information beside the painting told me that it was Jem Wharton, one of the ‘most successful boxers in early 19th-century Britain’, winning his first bare knuckle fight in 1833, and retiring undefeated in 1840. He’s been painted wearing boxing gloves but apparently these were only for training sessions and not actual fights. The detail that he had paused in the middle of training for the artist, made sense for me of the impression I had of his reluctance to be still and to be studied.

This was just one of the many paintings that made me pause and really indulge in the irresistible chance to wander up close to the subjects – to stand and stare without having to look away while I tried to see what the artist had seen.

I loved the visit. My two main impressions: first – the powerful propaganda potential of portraits; and second – there were a lot of portraits of men, painted by men. There were women, but they only really started to come into their own as we worked our way down to the lower floors.

If you’re thinking of going, you’ll need at least a couple of hours and you’ll probably want to go back again.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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Hot enough in London today

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The sun was shining, the breeze was cool, and the rain dabbed here and there, but nothing too serious – the perfect day to stroll along the South Bank and then over Millennium Bridge to St Paul’s.

We looked in on the beautiful craft shops on the first floor of the Oxo Tower, and then wandered on past Tate Modern, and the schools out for end of term trips, their uniforms and chat filling the grass beneath the trees. Buskers took up the edges before the airy bridge over the river.

The Morph, dressed ‘in London’ above, was outside the Tourist Information Centre, one of a whole tribe, each dressed differently, who we came across dotted around the City. Their pedestals, and each has one, includes information on Whizz Kids, a charity for young wheelchair users. I’ve just looked them up and I see the Morph tribe are all part of Morph’s Epic Art Adventure.

After lunch near St Paul’s, loving the indoor cool, we only had time for a quick walk around the Smithfield area, looking in on the church of St Bartholomew the Great, then over the Barbican, past the Ironmongers’ Hall, and on, too fast, and too hot, to catch a train from Waterloo.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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Television – The Gold

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We gobbled up The Gold. The series (six episodes) is on BBC iPlayer, and still showing every Sunday on BBC One.

It’s about the armed robbery of the Brinks-Mat warehouse at Heathrow, London, in November 1983. There were six men in the gang who carried out the heist, all of them from south London. Apparently they were hoping to find about £3m in cash, but instead they discovered £27m in gold, and were quite happy to take it. Then they had the massive problem of what to do with it – how to get rid of it without anyone noticing.

I found it fascinating. Completely 1980s. The police investigation was blind without CCTV, and had to operate a tiny follow up force to get around the corruption in its own members, and the sticky network of freemasons.

Worth a watch if you can find it. It’s fiction, but based on real events. Like Ferrante’s tales from Naples, Italy, there are women caught up in the crimes, and characters stuck in poverty, or recently released from it.

The Gold had me gripped. It’s got a great cast. And it’s changed my view of London.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023