The Tudors: Passion, Power and Politics

The Tudors: Passion, Power and Politics will open at the Walker Art Gallery on 21 May 2022, featuring around one hundred objects. This includes almost seventy works from the National Portrait Gallery, a selection of additional loans, and paintings from the Walker Art Gallery’s collection. It is the first time such a significant number of the National Portrait Gallery’s renowned Tudor portraits have been lent for exhibition. The Walker’s show will follow a smaller exhibition of 25 works at The Holburne Museum in Bath in January, with both exhibitions encompassing some of the most famous portraits from the National Portrait Gallery’s Tudor collection.

The exhibition presents the five Tudor monarchs, Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I, some of the most familiar figures from English history and instantly recognisable in the portraits that have preserved their likenesses for five hundred years. The dynasty’s reign over sixteenth-century England, from 1485 to 1603, encompassed the tumultuous years of the Reformation; a literary renaissance; conflict with Scotland, France and Spain; conquest and colonisation in Ireland and America; and the expansion of England’s global reach through piracy and trade. This major exhibition at the Walker will explore the Tudors from a range of perspectives. It will spotlight some historically underrepresented aspects of the period, including Black Tudor history and LGBTQ+ history.

A range of iconic figures from the period will also be exhibited, including Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, Mary Queen of Scots, and William Shakespeare. Some of the works included in the exhibition have never been shown outside of London, including a portrait of Jane Seymour, after Hans Holbein the Younger, and the highly unusual Sir Henry Unton portrait.

Sandra Penketh, Executive Director of Galleries and Collections Care, from the Walker Art Gallery National Museums Liverpool, said: “This exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery provides an opportunity to see some of the most iconic Tudor portraits in the world, here in Liverpool. It’s difficult to overemphasise what a rare and special moment this will be, and we can’t wait to share it with our visitors.