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Readers is an exhibition of new portraits by Raphael Egil in which the sitters are reading, and being read, and reading us. The artist has sought new ground within the very old genre of portraiture, both formally and by expanding the spiral of looking that is typically found in this type: the sitters here have the agency not only to look back while being looked at, but also to look, or even be, elsewhere, or not to look at all.

Most of the works have been painted from life in the traditional manner, the sitters drawn from Egil’s immediate circle of fellow artists, friends and family. Others are known to him only through books, through reading: Doris Lessing, Marcel Proust, Rembrandt van Rijn, each a painter of portraits in their own right. These are as much portraits of the sitters’ works as their appearances.

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Knightsbridge 63 Kinnerton Street, SW1X 8ED