Britain’s first grand portrait of a person of colour is saved for the nation
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 10 April 2023
⏱️ 29 minutes
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Summary
This bank holiday weekend, we're taking a step back from the news to bring you an update on a story we covered earlier in the year.
One of Britain's most important paintings of a non-white subject has now been saved for the nation following a public campaign to raise £50 million to buy it from its private owner. This is the story of the Portrait of Omai.
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Guest: Bendor Grosvenor, British art historian.
Host: David Aaronovitch.
Clips: Oxford University Press, TRT.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In 2004, Andrew Malkinson was jailed for life after a woman was raped in greater Manchester. |
| 0:09.4 | I couldn't find a way to demonstrate I was telling the truth. |
| 0:12.6 | But the police got the wrong man, who then fought for two decades to clear his name. |
| 0:18.5 | Today we told this court I was innocent and finally they listened. |
| 0:23.6 | Seventeen years, a series from The Times and The Sunday Times. |
| 0:27.2 | Listen wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:37.5 | Hello, it's Manveen. |
| 0:39.6 | Today we're bringing you something a little bit different for Bank Holiday Monday. |
| 0:44.8 | Just over a month ago, stories of our times shone a light on the remarkable story of a painting. |
| 0:52.3 | A painting of such historic significance that there was a public campaign to raise £50 million in donations to buy it from its private owner. |
| 1:02.9 | It's in part thanks to that campaign that just over a week ago, it was announced that the painting will be saved for the nation. |
| 1:10.7 | Today we're revisiting the story about the portrait of a my and why it's so significant, told beautifully by my former colleague, David Aronovich, |
| 1:21.6 | and the art historian, Bender Grovener. |
| 1:30.8 | Open your mind's eye. |
| 1:33.6 | It's a big picture, it's a full length, and Omai, who was the first Tahitian to come to Britain, sat to the artist Joshua Reynolds in 1776, thereabouts. |
| 1:44.6 | And you will be seeing him in all his Tahitian glory. |
| 1:47.4 | So he's wearing an almost entirely white and cream sort of series of robes and a turban. |
| 1:58.2 | Omai sounds magnificent. |
| 2:01.4 | He's sweeping through a landscape, and it's a tropical landscape because behind him are a couple of model-like palm trees. |
| 2:07.4 | And he's very much in command of his space, and Reynolds is presenting him as this slightly exotic, but very much a commanding presence. |
| 2:19.8 | Reynolds is Sir Joshua Reynolds, one of the most important artists produced by these islands. |
| 2:25.8 | The 18th century picture is one of the first portraits where the sole subject is a person of colour. |
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