The unpopular populism of the National Portrait Gallery

Nicholas Cullinan, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, says that the success of a gallery should not be judged by its number of visitors. He is defensive because the visitor figures at the NPG have fallen (by nearly 120,000 from 2016-17). Dr Cullinan is right. Anyone who likes going to galleries would always say, ‘The smaller the visitor numbers, the merrier for those who want to see the pictures.’

But what he says now would seem to go against his vision for the gallery’s future. It is currently trying to raise £35.5 million for its new ‘Inspiring People’ project. Launching the appeal in January, Dr Cullinan enthused about how the NPG wants to be ‘the nation’s family album’. He seeks room for more 20th-century and contemporary work and more ‘diversity’, thus parroting the utterly un-diverse uniformity of virtually everyone in the arts world. Dr Cullinan claims that modernisation and expansion are needed because the most common thing people say when entering the building is ‘Why does nobody here look like me?’ To which the obvious answer, is ‘Why should it? If you want a gallery to look like you, fill it with mirrors.’