McManus_Portraits_AR
Pic Alan Richardson Dundee, Pix-AR.co.uk
Staff at The McManus: Dundee's Art Gallery & Museum have been making final preparations for their major new portraiture exhibition which opens on Saturday. Drawn entirely from Dundee’s nationally significant fine art collection, the works selected will form two separate displays – Revealing Characters and Face to Face. In the twentieth century gallery, Revealing Characters looks at the enduring attraction of the portrait. Here we dig beneath the surface to uncover the stories of the people on display. All are individuals who have made their mark – their portraits a record of their contact, however fleeting, with an artist. As photography replaced the need to record what someone looked like, artists adapted. Their skills are used to capture more than a likeness, using the human face to explore their own artistic expression as well as the emotional life of the sitter. Face to Face unites the great and good of Victorian Dundee with more contemporary individuals. From provosts to posers the display considers what makes a successful portrait and how we can learn more about the sitter than what they look like.
