Van Dyck takes a seaside holiday in Margate as self portrait heads out on exhaustive UK tour

This article originally appeared on Culture24.

Sir Antony Van Dyck is limbering up for his UK tour with a spell by the seaside at Turner Contemporary

They say the sea air is good for you, so perhaps it's fitting that the venerable Sir Anthony Van Dyck is beginning his UK tour with a restorative sojourn down in Margate.

The artist's famous portrait, saved for the nation by the National Portrait Gallery in 2014 following a campaign backed by the Art Fund and a generous £6,343,500 from the Heritage Lottery Fund, is about to have a starring role in Turner Contemporary's new exhibition Self: Image and Identity - Self-portraiture from Van Dyck to Louise Bourgeois.

After which it will be heading out across the UK under the monicker of Van Dyck: A Masterpiece for Everyone. Appearances are slated in for Manchester Art Gallery in May, followed by Dulwich Picture Gallery and Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 2016 and the Laing Art Gallery, in Newcastle, and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2017.

In between these shows Van Dyck will be busy with a series of three themed displays at the National Portrait Gallery highlighting the portrait's importance in the context of five centuries of portrait painting from the 1550s to today.

The Margate exhibition will be the first public view of the portrait since August 2014, when the National Portrait Gallery removed it from display for a period of conservation which is detailed in specially commissioned films on the National Portrait Gallery’s website at npg.org.uk/vandyck.

One of three known English self-portraits painted by the court painter to Charles I, the portrait is thought to date to the last years of Van Dyck's life.

The artist shows himself fashionably dressed but apparently in the act of painting, the line of his right shoulder and sleeve suggesting his hand raised in the process of applying paint to a canvas just out of sight.

Displayed in a crested oval with the sunflower motif associated with the artist, the frame is also thought to have been designed with Van Dyck's involvement.

The Van Dyck UK tour dates in full:

Turner Contemporary, Margate: 24 January – 10 May 2015
Manchester Art Gallery: 21 May – 31 August 2015
National Portrait Gallery, London: 4 September 2015 – 3 January 2016
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London: 12 January – 24 April 2016
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery: May – August 2016
National Portrait Gallery, London: September – December 2016/January 2017
Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle: January – May 2017
Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh: June – August 2017
National Portrait Gallery, London: September – December 2017/January 2018

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Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk//art/painting-and-drawing/art514178-van-dyck-takes-a-seaside-holiday-in-margate-as-self-portrait-heads-out-on-exhaustive-uk-tour