This is a past exhibition.

Faces of Fame: G F Watts X Simon Frederick exhibits a selection of photographs from Simon Frederick’s portrait series Black is the New Black alongside paintings from G F Watts’s Hall of Fame. These portraits have been loaned from the National Portrait Gallery’s Collection as part of its National Skills Sharing Partnership Programme.

Today, the portraits of ‘greats’ as represented by G F Watts’s Hall of Fame – nearly all of which depict white male writers, politicians, and social reformers – raise significant questions about those who Victorian art and society celebrated. Simon Frederick’s Black is the New Black uses the portrait series format to present an assembly of celebrated contemporary Black Britons.

Featuring twelve portraits from Black is the New Black and seven portraits from Watts’s Hall of Fame, the display re-examines the representation of celebrity, race, gender, class, power and empire, allowing for a critical re-evaluation and exploration of what a Hall of Fame might look like today.

This display has been created in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery as part of their transformational Inspiring People project which includes an extensive programme of nationwide activities, funded by The National Heritage Lottery Fund and Art Fund.

Habib Hajallie joins us from the 7 December.

Hajallie's works are informed by his Sierra Leonean and Lebanese heritage, representing figures that have historically been conspicuously omitted from traditional British portraiture. Habib summarises the work he'll undertake through his residency here at Watts Gallery, exploring the works of both G F Watts and Simon Frederick in Faces of Fame and recontextualising what it means to be a Great Britain.