Married fellow painter John Bratby in 1953. An assured figurative painter, Cooke had her first solo show at the Leicester Galleries in 1964 and exhibited her work regularly from then on.

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) ...

Italian-born Belzoni moved to England in 1803 where he found work for a time as a strongman, actor and conjuror at fairs and theatres around the country. He travelled to Egypt having persuaded Mehmet ...

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 ...

Lady Arabella was a cousin of James I and next in the line of succession after his children. When she received a letter from Lord Cobham in 1603 announcing a plan to murder James I and place her on ...

The eldest daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV and his fourth wife, Elizabeth of Pomerania. Anne became Queen of England on 20 January 1382 when she was married to Richard II in Westminster ...

Find out what's on in our current and upcoming exhibitions, displays, events, programmes, workshops and more.

Join our free monthly Deaf-led BSL tours for D/deaf and hard of hearing visitors to take a journey through the Collection and discover stories associated with featured artworks. Led by Alan Murray in ...

The exhibition begins by introducing the fashionable Bluestocking Circle and exploring how a tight-knit group of women became a model for rational 'Enlightenment' forms of sociability. The ...