WHEN the National Portrait Gallery

finally reopens its doors after a £35.5million redevelopment, it won’t be just the building near Trafalgar Square that visitors may find unrecognisable.

I hear that its collection is undergoing a ‘woke’ makeover which will see many of its portraits of ‘stale, pale males’ removed from its walls. In their place will be far more paintings and photographs of non-white faces. ‘They are trying to say, “We are multi-racial”,’ a source working on the revamp tells me. ‘They are trying to put more diverse people in the collection which were not shown on the walls.’

The gallery has tried in the past to make the subjects of its portraits more racially diverse. In 2017, it staged the Black Is The New Black exhibition featuring photographs by Simon Frederick of figures including supermodel Naomi Campbell and national treasure Sir Lenny Henry.

Last year, the gallery’s patron, the Duchess of Cambridge, launched a photography project, ‘Hold Still’, aimed at capturing life during the pandemic.

A gallery spokesman tells me: ‘We are still in the planning stages of the rehang of the collection and it’s too soon to say which specific portraits will be on display.

‘We have a long-term commitment to increase representation in our collection and programme.’