The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in London and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles co-owner “Portrait of Omai” by Sir Joshua Reynolds (circa 1776). Announced on Friday, almost two weeks after the UK extended a export ban on the life-size portrait, the acquisition will make the painting accessible to the public.
In a rarely seen move, the museums will share the cost of the approximately $62 million painting. In a statement shared with Hyperallergic, NPG says it has secured most of the funds needed, with around $1.2 million still to be raised. Once purchased, the painting will alternate between the US and UK for public display, research and conservation care – however, the institutions have yet to finalize details on joint custody arrangements.
The 18th century portrait features the first man of Polynesian descent to visit the UK. Mai or Ma’i came to Britain in 1774, on Captain Cook’s second voyage from Tahiti. According to a Smithsonian Magazine excerpt from Hampton Sides non-fiction The Exotic, released in 2021, the Pacific Islander man may not have been as majestic as Reynolds portrays him. Although famous in Britain, Mai may have been a commoner who asked to go to England. Her story reflects a lot in England’s colonizing past of a person of color paraded and paraded as an oddity.
“I have come to think of her journey as an allegory of colonialism and its unintended consequences: England, showing off her riches and progress, then sending May back with a treasure trove of mostly insignificant treasures, the had doomed a confused and uprooted existence,” writes Sides.
In March 2022, the UK imposed a temporary export ban on the painting, saying ‘Portrait of Omai’ provided “an important insight into Britain’s reception, understanding and portrayal of people from outside of Europe at this time in history”. The ban would give NPG time to raise enough money to keep the painting in the UK.
“The portrait is unique in British and global culture and yet has never been part of a museum collection: it now has the potential to be in two, one facing the Pacific where Mai is from, and the other just yards from Reynolds’ studio, where it was painted,” NPG director Nicholas Cullinan said in a statement.
