Legacy // H.S

17.

'One thing I can tell you is you got to be free'

*

The National Portrait Gallery. Home to the most extensive collection of portraits in the world, with over 150,000 pieces on display to the public. In storerooms are another 75,000; researched, studied, restored – collecting dust. It's a shame that so many don't get to see the light of day unless brought out for a small exhibition. The rest, though magnificent, are hardly appreciated enough too unless you've a keen eye for art. I don't necessarily know the ins and outs of it all, but I like looking for the small details in them.

Portraiture is so much more personal than landscape or still life. It takes a look at the inner workings of identity, psychology, symbolism, and society. A statement about the model and the type of person that are categorised as. Portraiture isn't just another expression of nature or objects; it pays respects to these, but in relation to people and our endless desire to leave an impact wherever we go.

They tell stories, past, present, and future. They open up the sitter to a wealth of assumptions from the viewer. They lead the conversation and close it when they want. Art is wonderfully freeing, I think.

There's a reason why it's been studied so ardently throughout history, and why it continues to be a defining feature of every culture and society. Art explains what words can't. It both vocalises and illustrates the deepest of emotions, all through a single stroke of a brush. I'm not sure anything is quite as powerful as art.

The fact that we're focusing our thieving efforts on it has excited me more than I care to admit. With the Tower heist, I'm excited because diamonds are all I know. They're my entire life, both with my work and with my passion. I was brought up around them; they define who I am. But art, art is delicate to one's own sensibilities. And when I'm standing in a gallery, surrounded by thousands of priceless pieces, I sometimes wonder why I didn't choose to go into the conservation of paintings instead.

Today, we're visiting the gallery one final time before the art heist. Claude agrees it's essential for all of us to be aware of everything we've covered in the warehouse in a realistic setting, the weight of risk heightened once we're able to see just how close the cameras are or the security guards follow.

We've gone over the plans meticulously over the weeks, mapping out our moves, Liam's strategy, where we should step and where we should avoid. There have been practise runs in the warehouse, and even small attacks in lesser-known galleries so members of the team can get into the swing of things. I've only trained in the makeshift room built in the Essex lot, and the replica of the gallery space Claude had built in one of his many other warehouse spaces on the other side of the river.

Inside, some of the greatest pieces of art known to man sit. Pieces he's stolen throughout the years and still clings onto, or just hasn't got around to moving on to others yet. On the day I visited, I watched groups of painters study the paintings closely, creating exact replicas that even I couldn't differentiate from the real compositions. Claude told me he likes to return the fakes for the reward money, usually hiring a random person to carry it out and paying them handsomely for their efforts. By the time the galleries realise they've been conned, all trace of the person that sold it back to them is erased, because they never really existed.

That's what he plans on doing with the Tudor portraits once we steal them. After that, he'll probably sell two of them, but he's insistent on keeping the Whitehall Mural, despite how huge it is. He likes the idea of having something that everyone else wants. I suppose we all do, though, if we're about to steal them.

The building is a smaller structure than the standard gallery next door, the entrance almost invisible on the busy street behind Leicester Square. The crowds aren't as busy here, and there's rarely a queue outside, but once you're inside, it's almost identical to its counterpart.