Nicholas Cullinan of London’s National Portrait Gallery joins the institution amid the fallout of a major theft scandal and ongoing calls for restitution.
Wouldn’t it be lovely, when looking back at the year in art, to begin with some paintings? To shine a light on one or two of our museums’ significant recent acquisitions, such as Joshua Reynolds’s Portrait of Mai (c 1776), which, together with the Getty in Los Angeles, the National Portrait Gallery secured for £50 million? The National Gallery now owns Henri Rousseau’s Portrait of Joseph Brummer (1909), depicting the Hungarian art dealer sitting in a wicker chair, smoking. The Royal Collection r