The National Portrait Gallery also has regional outposts at Beningbrough Hall in Yorkshire and Montacute House in Somerset.

The gallery houses portraits of historically important and famous British people, selected on the basis of the significance of the sitter, not that of the artist.

Often, the curiosity value is greater than the artistic worth of a work, as in the case of the anamorphic portrait of Edward VI by William Scrots, Patrick Branwell Brontë's painting of his sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne, or a sculpture of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in medieval costume.

The three people largely responsible for the founding of the National Portrait Gallery are commemorated with busts over the former main entrance on St Martin's Place.

Following calls for a new location to be found, the government accepted an offer of funds from the philanthropist William Henry Alexander.

[8] Both the architect, Ewan Christian, and the gallery's first director, George Scharf, died shortly before the new building was completed.

[7] The first extension, in 1933, was funded by Lord Duveen, and resulted in the wing by the architect Sir Richard Allison[9] on a site previously occupied by St George's Barracks running along Orange Street.

In January 2008, the Gallery received its largest single donation to date, a £5m gift from the US billionaire Randy Lerner.

[17] Bodelwyddan Castle's partnership with the National Portrait Gallery came to an end in 2017 after its funding was cut by Denbighshire County Council.

[20][21] In October 2019, a group of semi-naked environmental campaigners were drenched in fake oil, in the Ondaatje Wing main hall, as part of a protest against BP's sponsorship of a collection of pieces in the gallery.

Three activists covered in black liquid lay down for about five minutes on a plastic sheet before standing up again, wiping themselves down with towels, and cleaning up after themselves.

[23] The refurbishment cost £41 million, was designed by the architect Jamie Fobert and Purcell and the main contractor was Gilbert-Ash.

The gallery's main entrance was moved and features three new 4 m (13 ft) bronze doors which carry 45 portraits of un-named women, drawn by Tracey Emin.

[33] The gallery was reopened by the Princess of Wales on 20 June 2023 and she met Sir Paul McCartney whose photography exhibition was the first major show in the new space and viewed the Portrait of Omai by Sir Joshua Reynolds, which the gallery had just acquired jointly with the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, for £50 million.

[7] The National Portrait Gallery is an executive non-departmental public body of the UK Government, sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

[38] On 14 July 2009, the National Portrait Gallery sent a demand letter alleging breach of copyright against an editor-user of Wikipedia, who downloaded thousands of high-resolution reproductions of public domain paintings from the NPG website, and placed them on Wikipedia's sister media repository site, Wikimedia Commons.

"[45] In 2012, the Gallery licensed 53,000 low-resolution images under a Creative Commons licence, making them available free of charge for non-commercial use.