This is a wonderful gallery with the originals of ...

This is a wonderful gallery with the originals of portraits you have seen on the covers of biographies, on documentaries or staring out of the pages of history texts for your entire life. The Brontes, Byron, Shakespeare, Robert Burns and many other paintings you will have seen a thousand times are powerful in person.

Even at a decent pace you will need two hours to get around and see everything. It is set over three floors covering different periods. It is best to start at the top with the earliest works and work down. When getting to the 20th century i was surprised most by what is missing; no Beatles or even Lennon, no Bowie, only one or two movie or film stars. A great many artists that no average person knows or cares about. It is a national portrait gallery not a national gallery of self portraits after all.

The ludicrous snobbery of shunning John Lennon for Germaine Greer aside this is wonderful gallery. It will never be as popular as other galleries as they clearly have the attitude art is for the few and not the many in assembling their collect.

My only real negative is I found the staff rude an ill informed. Asking for directions to Byron got me several looks of distaste from pretentious looking staff and little help. At one point I tried to take a picture of a portrait and a miserable looking women literally ran over an wagged her finger at me. So I responded "the Tate Modern are fine with photography without flash and have friendly staff, perhaps that is why that gallery is popular".

So despite being very uninviting and ignoring popular culture when choosing displays it is worth it just to see the great period pieces.