Campaign to jointly acquire portrait by Reynolds reaches £50m target

An attempt by London’s National Portrait Gallery and the Getty in the US to jointly acquire Joshua Reynolds’ Portrait of Mai (Omai) has been successful.

The National Portrait Gallery raised £25m, which included a grant of £10m from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and an Art Fund grant of £2.5m. Combined with other funding and a matching amount of money from Getty, this made up the £50m needed to acquire the painting.

The Art Fund grant of £2.5m was the largest in its history, while the £10m given by the National Heritage Memorial Fund was also an exceptional amount. Contributions also came from The Portrait Fund, the Deborah Loeb Brice Foundation and Julia and Hans Rausing, with further support from the Idan and Batia Ofer Family Foundation and David & Emma Verey Charitable Trust, as well as many other trusts, foundations and individuals.

The shared ownership of the work and strategic partnership between the National Portrait Gallery and Getty is an unusal international collaboration. The two institutions will share the painting for public exhibition, research and conservation care.

National Portrait Gallery director Nicholas Cullinan said: “Reynolds’ majestic Portrait of Mai is by far the most significant acquisition the National Portrait Gallery has ever made, and the largest acquisition the UK has ever made, along with the Titians acquired by the National Gallery and the National Galleries of Scotland in 2009 and 2012.”

Timothy Potts, director of the J Paul Getty Museum, said: “The opportunity for Getty to partner with the National Portrait Gallery in acquiring and presenting this work to audiences in Britain and California, and from around the world, represents an innovative model that we hope will encourage others to think creatively about how major works of art can most effectively be shared.”

The painting will first be exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery when it reopens on 22 June following a transformation project, and will later be shown at other institutions across the UK. The portrait will travel between the two countries, sharing time equally between them. The first Getty presentation will be in 2026, including the period when Los Angeles hosts the 2028 Olympic Games.

Reynolds’ Portrait of Mai (Omai) holds an important position in global art history, depicting the first Polynesian to visit Britain, and is widely regarded as the finest portrait by one of Britain’s greatest artists.

Known as “Omai” in England, Mai (ca. 1753-1779) was a native of Raiatea, an island now part of French Polynesia, who travelled from Tahiti to England with Captain James Cook. He spent the years 1774-76 in London, where he was received by royalty and the intellectual elite, and indeed became something of a celebrity. Mai returned to his homeland in 1777 and died there two years later.