The Queen will this week open the new £15.9 million wing of the National Portrait Gallery.
A host of famous faces, including William Shakespeare and the Rolling Stones, will be housed in the
Ondaatje Wing, named after financier Christopher Ondaatje, who donated £2.75 million.
Using a 23-metre escalator - one of the longest in the UK - visitors will be able to go straight up to the
new Tudor Galley to view the collection starting with the earliest paintings.
Sixteenth century portraits will be displayed in the new Tudor Gallery, spotlit by fibre optic lights.
Famous faces from British cultural, historical and scientific life from the 1960s to the 1980s will be displayed in the Balcony
Gallery, where Margaret Thatcher will rub shoulders with Arthur Scargill and Joan Collins.
The wing, which is opened on Thursday, provides 50% more public and exhibition space, including a rooftop restaurant with
panoramic views across Trafalgar Square and Whitehall and a 135-seat lecture theatre.
A new IT Gallery will allow visitors to explore in depth all 10,000 portraits in the Gallery's Primary Collection, as well as
sections of its Photographic and Archive Collections of more than 250,000 portraits.
The project was given a £11.9 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, while private donators, including Mr Ondaatje,
funded the rest.
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Camilla kept off royal party guest list - paper(Yahoo: Reuters)
LONDON (Reuters) - Prince Charles's long-time lover Camilla Parker Bowles has
been left off the guest list for a royal party celebrating the 100th birthday of the
Queen Mother, the Daily Mail newspaper reported on Monday.
The paper said Charles was "resigned and disappointed" that his mistress would not
be able to attend his grandmother's centenary party in June.
Citing a senior Buckingham Palace source the paper said Queen Elizabeth remains
"implacably opposed" to her son's relationship with Camilla, and her name will be
kept off the 500-strong guest list.
Charles has trod a delicate public relations path over his relationship with Camilla since his marriage to Princess Diana ended in
1996 with admissions of adultery on both sides.
Since Diana's death the following year in a Paris car crash Camilla has gradually been brought into the limelight.
The couple first appeared in public in a carefully staged photo opportunity outside London's Ritz Hotel in January last year.
Camilla has since accompanied Charles on holiday and on trips to the theatre, and been at his side at a number of semi-official
functions.
She has never attended an engagement at which the Queen has also been present.
According to the Daily Mail the Queen objects to the relationship because she fears it may damage the image of the monarchy
and also on religious grounds because of the couple's divorcee status and their adultery.
The paper said the party, at Windsor Castle, near London, on June 21, would celebrate not only the Queen Mother's 100th
birthday but also the 18th of Charles's elder son Prince William, the 70th of the Queen's sister Princess Margaret, the 40th of
the Queen's second son Prince Andrew and the 50th of her daughter Princess Anne.
The Queen Mother's 100th birthday actually falls on August 4.
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