The National Portrait Gallery has taken down its portray of the Kids Company founder. But whether the collection is a reflection of life,surely there should be space for the more ‘morally ambiguous’ among us The serial wife-killer stands plump and cocksure in the National Portrait Gallery, flaunting a dagger. Hans Holbein’s lifesize drawing of Henry VIII is undoubtedly the greatest work of art in this museum of pictures of British people. But should such a murderous tyrant be celebrated in our gallery of national heroes at all?Henry Tudor was surely a worse human being than Kids Company founder Camila Batmanghelidjh, or whose portrait recently vanished from the National Portrait Gallery wall just as her public reputation took a nose dive. It is one of a whole bunch removed to make space for current exhibitions,but reports state that there are no plans for this portray by Dean Marsh to be rehung. whether the much-criticised charity boss really has been permanently mothballed by the NPG, it reveals something profoundly primitive in our attitude to portraits.
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Source: theguardian.com