Alistair Hardaker | l-R: Nick at home (London), 2025, by Elizabeth Peyton; Cullinan and Peyton unveiling Nick at home (London), 2025 (David Parry)
‘Nick at home’ portrait commissioned to mark Cullinan’s 2015-2024 tenure as director, donated by the artist and now on permanent display.
The National Portrait Gallery has unveiled a portrait of its former director Nicholas Cullinan by the American artist Elizabeth Peyton.
The work, ‘Nick at home (London)’, 2025, was commissioned to mark Cullinan’s tenure as director of the National Portrait Gallery from 2015 to 2024, before becoming director of the British Museum.
It has been given to the gallery by the artist and is now on permanent display, the first painting by Peyton to enter the gallery’s permanent collection.
Flavia Frigeri, chief curator of the National Portrait Gallery, said: “Nicholas Cullinan gave a decade of transformative vision to the NPG, and it is a joy to welcome Elizabeth Peyton’s portrait of him into our permanent Collection. This work is a beautiful testament to both her talent and Nicholas’s remarkable contribution to the NPG.”
The portrait continues the gallery’s tradition of representing its former directors. It was painted from life, with sittings taking place in Paris, where the artist is based, and London, where Cullinan lives.
Peyton and Cullinan worked together on the artist’s retrospective ‘Elizabeth Peyton: Aire and Angels’, held at the National Portrait Gallery in 2019-2020 and curated by Lucy Wood.
Cullinan said: “I’m honoured not only to sit for Elizabeth, as one of the great artists working today and a dear friend, but that her very generous donation marks the first painting of hers to enter the permanent collection of the NPG.”
