Portrait of Sachin Tendulkar unveiled at Lord’s before the third Test between India and England
A portrait of Sachin Tendulkar was unveiled in the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) Museum at Lord’s before the start of the third Test between India and England here on Thursday.
The portrait, painted by Stuart Pearson Wright from a photograph taken by the artist at his home 18 years ago.
“It’s a huge honour. In 1983, when India won the World Cup, it was my first introduction to Lord’s,” Tendulkar said.
“I saw our captain, Kapil Dev, lift the trophy. That moment sparked my cricketing journey. Today, with my portrait going up inside the Pavilion, it feels like it’s come full circle. When I reflect on my career, it brings a smile to my face. This is truly special.”
Pearson Wright has previously painted portraits of Kapil Dev, Bishan Singh Bedi, and Dilip Vengsarkar.
“It was clear that MCC didn’t want this portrait to be in the same format as the previous Indian cricket portraits I made, so a fresh approach was taken with this one,” Wright said.
“I decided on a composition which focused more on Sachin’s head and also used a heroic larger-than-lifesize scale to give the painting a sense of gravitas and power.”
The Lord’s Portrait Programme has been running in its current form for three decades, but MCC has been collecting art and artefacts since the Victorian period, opening a dedicated museum in the 1950s, making it the oldest sporting museum in Europe.
The Long Room Gallery is the oldest and most iconic gallery in sport. The Club currently houses around 3,000 pictures, nearly 300 of which are portraits.
“I have often painted a portrait with an abstract background, often a plain colour, rather than paint a rendition of an interior or exterior space,” the artist added.
“This is largely to give focus to the subject’s features and to minimise a context which might define the subject in some way.”
The portrait will remain in the MCC Museum until later this year and will then be relocated to the Pavilion.
