As the National Portrait Gallery prepares for its grand reopening this week, critics, artists and curators pick their favourite works from 500 years of portraiture
Searching, wondering and staring eyes
Self-Portrait of Suffering by Ibrahim El-Salahi, 1961
The African modernist El-Salahi studied at the Slade in London in the 1950s and western modernism clearly influenced him. El-Salahi’s work has often delved into the personal and here we see him in a confused, uncertain state of mind. I am reminded of the gaping mouth of Munch’s Scream, or the bull in Picasso’s Guernica, given the equine nature of the face. The hair is manic but orderly, coiled and framing deep, endless concentric circles of eyes – searching, wondering and staring somehow both at us and into the abyss. Portraits at the precipice of melancholy or mania are the most attractive to me. They are honest and human. Aindrea Emelife
Messy domestic moments
Sid James by Ruskin Spear, 1962
This collage captures both the funny and sad: how life is made up of grand aspirations and messy little domestic settings. We watch comedian Sid James on TV in Hancock’s Half Hour, but also see what looks like an invitation to the opening of a Henry Moore exhibition, a CND flyer, as well as adverts for remedies for colds, flu and rheumatism on the coffee table. Maybe we’ll just stay in by the telly. Alison Smith
