Self: Image and Identity

At the heart of the display is Van Dyck’s magnificent self-portrait, acquired by the National Portrait Gallery last year after a joint public fundraising appeal with the Art Fund that sought to stop its export to America. Part of the Art Fund grant is being used to support a tour of the painting, which begins here in Margate. One of just three the artist completed in Britain, it is also Van Dyck's final self portrait; he died within a year of its completion. Here it is used to trigger an exploration of the genre's development over 400 years.

More than 100 artists' self-portraits are featured, ranging from Victorian masters JMW Turner and John Constable to 20th century greats Louise Bourgeois and Lucian Freud and contemporary icons Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas and Gillian Wearing. Key themes addressed in the exhibition include identity, mortality and patronage, as well as the changing nature of the self-portraiture.