His Picture in Little : Shakespeare, Hamlet and Tacita Dean

Charming display at the National Portrait Gallery as part of the Tacita Dean: Portraits exhibition which I missed on my first visit to that show as it was not with the main show.

 
This was room looked at the idea of miniature portraits with the title taken from Hamlet where Hamlet refers to the escalating value of “portraits in little” of his uncle when he became king. For this reason there was a portrait of Shakespeare in the room along with those of Donne and Drayton who also mention miniatures in their work.
 
The miniatures were shown to reflect the literary world of the time with a picture of one of the brothers to whom the First Folio is dedicated and the Earl of Derby, the earliest court patron of the stage.
 
In the midst of this was a small scale Tacita Dean video of David Warner, Stephen Dilliane and Ben Whishaw, all of whom have played Hamlet. Oddly compared to the miniatures the film felt rather out of focus and misty however it was a nice modern reaction to the idea of miniatures.
 
Closed on 28 May 2018

 

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