Case Studies - Portrait Sittings 

Portrait Events

National Trust: Beningbrough Hall

Developing new portraits of the public.

Having established a good relationship with National Trust (NT) Beningbrough Hall as one of the venues for Portraits Untold in 2016, I was invited back in 2017 for a new commission, ‘Sitters and their Stories’.

Devised by myself and the National Trust team, the project celebrated the remarkable lives and diversity of members of the public, who were invited to apply to have their portraits painted in front of a live audience by telling us a story about themselves. 5 individuals were painted over 4 days of live portrait sittings and the sitters were later gifted their finished portraits during a special presentation event.

As in Portraits Untold, members of the public were encouraged to take part in the portrait creation and images from the audience were embedded into the finished paintings. With planning, delivery on site, finishing the portraits in my home studio and returning for the presentation event the project took place over several months with 21 days of direct delivery time.

One of the portraits was later featured in Making Her Mark, an NT/ National Portrait Gallery partnership exhibition at Beningbrough Hall.