Close Encounters

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Martha Kearney hosts British celebrities past and present at the National Portrait Gallery

Martha Kearney invites ten leading figures of today to the newly refurbished National Portrait Gallery to champion a favourite picture from the Gallery's star-studded collection.

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Close Encounters: Clara Amfo and Amy Winehouse

Sir Paul Smith & Cecil Beaton

Clara Amfo and Amy Winehouse

BBC Radio 4 - Close Encounters, Clara Amfo and Amy Winehouse

Martha Kearney invites ten leading figures of today to the newly refurbished National Portrait Gallery to select a favourite picture from the Gallery's star-studded collection.

The seventh of Martha Kearney’s new series celebrating portraits and portraiture through the eyes of ten Great Britons. Her guest is the British radio broadcaster, television presenter, podcast host, Clara Amfo.  Her choice is the singer songwriter Amy Winehouse.

After three years of closure for major refurbishment and expansion the National Portrait Gallery, just off London's Trafalgar Square is set for re-opening. To mark the occasion the gallery, along with BBC Radio 4 have launched a celebration of great Briton's, with Martha Kearney hosting a Close Encounter between the likes of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Dame Katherine Grainger and Edward Enninful and a portrait they choose to champion. For Sir Tim Berners-Lee it's the Suffragette campaigner Christabel Pankhurst, for Dame Katherine Grainger it's the first English woman to swim the channel, the largely forgotten Mercedes Gleitze.

In each episode we find out about the subject of the portrait, the moment at which their image was captured for posterity and the importance of image and identity for those who find themselves in the eye of the nation's attention today.

Producers: Tom Alban and Mohini Patel

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