As of yesterday, March 19, Lily Allen is more of a West End girl than ever: she’s just had her portrait hung in the National Portrait Gallery’s contemporary collection, where it will remain for the next year. (The nation’s portrait palace sure beats a pussy palace.)
The portrait is the cover of Allen’s 2025 album West End Girl, which pored over the breakdown and wreckage of the London singer-songwriter’s relationship with Stranger Things actor David Harbour. Allen commissioned Spanish artist Nieves González, who specialises in classical oil paintings that subvert 17th-century portraiture, for the painting. It shows the musician in a blue puffer jacket and polka-dot knee-high boots. Allen said in a statement that the portrait “reflects so many facets of the album – strength, power, vulnerability, determination and confusion”.
This marks the first piece by González to be loaned to a major UK public institution. “This work reflects how art and music come together in the act of creation, with all its layers and facets,” González said in statement.
