Radio 3 celebrates the art of portraiture on Monday

Chopin, Webern, Vaughan Williams...and Garbo, Armstrong and Napoleon

On Monday May 7 BBC Radio 3 will celebrate the art of portraiture with a day of performance and debate devoted to exploring how personalities have been captured in music, as well as in painting and sculpture.

More than 100 existing musical portraits – of subjects including Greta Garbo, Nelson Mandela, Marie Antoinette and Louis Armstrong – will be heard, while composer Jonathan Dove will be commissioned to write a new musical portrait, inspired by suggestions of public figures made by audiences during the day. Jazz On 3 with Jez Nelson will feature Radio 3 New Generation Jazz Artist Shabaka Hutchings's musical portrait of 1980s artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, while In Tune will welcome artist Maggi Hambling, portrait painter Jonathan Yeo, actor Fiona Shaw, composer Robin Holloway, and novelist Ian Rankin to discuss the art of portraiture.

Find out more about the people depicted during Portraits Day - and the composers doing the depicting - in our Gallery View: Click the first image to launch the gallery.