Emmeline Pankhurst
- Artist: Georgina Agnes Brackenbury
- Date: 1927
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 31 in. x 24 1/4 in. (787 mm x 616 mm)
- Portrays: Emmeline Pankhurst
- Museum: The National Portrait Gallery
- Collection record: The National Portrait Gallery website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is “Emmeline Pankhurst.” In the canvas before us we see her at sixty‑eight, a year before she passed away. She wears simple round spectacles that sit neatly on her nose, and her hands rest on a table holding a small ring or brooch – an understated jewellery detail that suggests her personal style.
The oil paint is applied with soft layers, giving the portrait a warm, subtle glow. Brackenbury’s brushwork captures fine features: the lined eyes, the slight smile, the calm posture. The background remains plain so our focus stays on her face and hands.
Both sitter and painter were militant suffragettes. Pankhurst founded the Women’s Social and Political Union in 1903, a group that carried the motto “Deeds not Words” and used civil disobedience to secure women’s vote. Brackenbury, too, was imprisoned for her activism and even acted as a pallbearer at Pankhurst’s funeral.
The portrait is a quiet record of a woman who, through action more than words, helped bring equal suffrage to all English women in 1928.
See it in person
Emmeline Pankhurst is in the collection of The National Portrait Gallery at St Martin's Place, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
