National Portrait Gallery Scavenger Hunt

Instructions

Click the link above to start. The clues below will direct you throughout the website to different portraits where you will find the corresponding letters to the symbols to reveal the hidden message above. The symbol translations will be easily visible over the image itself.

The idea is you will, for the most part, be able to find the answers to the clues by clicking around in the information below or around the image you're on. So for example there is infomation about sitters and the artists who created the work, sometimes there is a blurb about the work or artist, or sometimes there is information about the place the work was made or the theme surrounding the artwork and you can click through to view further artworks associated with these categories. Sometimes you may need to search through multiple pages of these associated artworks to get to the correct one.

In some cases you will need to use the search functionality on the website by clicking the magnifying glass icon at the top of the site. You may need to google bits of information for some clues as well!

Clues

1. The artist who created this portrait did a series of them for Best of Blur. The first symbol is hidden on the green (roughly, #514916) one.
2. The sitter in this portrait was the sitter in another in December 1996. This is where the second symbol is hiding.
3. This portrait has the subject or theme ‘Eating and Drinking’. The next symbol is hidden on a portrait that shares this category. This one hopefully you won’t find ‘down a rabbit hole’.
4. This portrait was taken in Oxfordshire. The next symbol is hidden on a portrait taken in the same place, this time of a Beatle.
5. This portrait is categorised under the theme of ‘Making music’. There is another portrait under this theme which is described as being painted in ‘watercolour on ivory’. The next symbol is hidden on this portrait.
6. The next symbol you’ll have to do a little more work for! Search the website for the place the subject of this watercolour was a chorister at before going to sea as a midshipman. You’ll find the symbol hidden on a stereograph.
7. To find the next symbol you first have to watch the digital interpretation of this stereograph (there is a link on the page) which gives you a sense of the illusion of depth the images create when viewed through a stereograph. Then scroll down and click on the image of someone posing in front of giant machinery. Click on the original stereoscopic card here to the right. This is where you’ll find the next symbol!
8. From here you’ll click on the link to see 360 degree sculptures in the right hand side. The sculpture you’re looking for next is the spit of a former prime minister.
9. Finding the next symbol will involve a bit of searching again. According to the notes at the side of this 360 image, this sculpture was made from a type of material which was then painted. Please search for the material. You're then looking for a royal Barbie, manufactured in 2004.
10. The next portrait with the next symbol shares the ‘Fan’ subject. You’re looking for a 日本人女性. (hint: you may want to translate this)
11. I encourage you next to explore the related theme or subject of ‘Diversity’ all the way to page 4. The next symbol is hiding in an orange portrait that was created with a material you might write on a blackboard with!
12. If you click on this sitter’s name you’ll see a small biography about her. The penultimate symbol is on a portrait of the director of the film she sang ‘Stormy Weather’ in and is a print by Steve Pyke from 1983.
13. The final symbol you’ll find if you follow the subject category ‘Shadows’ to page 4. The portrait you are looking for features an actor famous for playing Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind.