Extraordinary Portraits - All Seasons
Season 1
Extraordinary Portraits sees musician and passionate collector of art Tinie, match members of the public with extraordinary stories to a selection of distinctive and celebrated portrait artists. The artists are then challenged to turn these personal and powerful experiences into compelling portraits.
Season 2
Season 3
To mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the NHS, a brand new series of Extraordinary Portraits sees comedian, musician, and art lover Bill Bailey pair a selection of extraordinary NHS workers with some of the UK's most celebrated portrait artists.
Season 4
Comedian and art lover Bill Bailey returns to BBC One for a new series of Extraordinary Portraits, matching talented artists with inspiring individuals to create breathtaking works of art which reflect modern Britain.
In this series, the portraits' subjects include a railway worker who has saved 29 people at their lowest ebb; a couple who've fostered almost 200 children; an army veteran whose walk around the UK's coastline raised more than half a million pounds to support ex-servicemen and women; an influencer with Down's Syndrome who's taking her campaign to change legislation to the government; a lost football Lioness whose achievements were erased from history for half a century; and a young woman with incurable cancer who's determined to make a difference for other people diagnosed at a young age.
An exhibition of the portraits from this series will open in the spring in Bradford as part of the UK City of Culture.
Season 5
Extraordinary Portraits sees musician, comedian and art-lover Bill Bailey matching ordinary people who have extraordinary backstories with some of the country's most talented portrait artists, shining a light on modern Britain.
This year's sitters have been chosen by Bill for their exceptionally inspiring stories: from the civil servant who fought off a terrorist using a narwhal tusk to the sisters who made medical history when one gave birth from the other's womb; the grandmother still competing in Iron Man competitions in her 80s; a survivor of the Post Office scandal who was imprisoned while she was pregnant, and the young brothers with early-onset frontotemporal dementia choosing to live to the fullest.
Making up Bill's family of artists are award-winning painters Caroline Pool and Karen Turner; sculptor Nick Elphick, multi-media artist Jack Dickson, newcomer Unza Saleem and celebrity artist Ricky Wilson, who taught art at Leeds College of Art and Design. Their task is not only to recreate their sitters' likeness but to dig deeper to capture the emotional depth and significance of their stories.
