LONDON, UK.- The National Gallery presents John Virtue: London Paintings, on view through June 5, 2005. John Virtue is the sixth National Gallery Associate Artist. Working in the National Gallery's studio, Virtue has made eleven paintings for this exhibition, four representing the London cityscape looking towards St Paul's Cathedral, four of the city from the roof of Somerset House and three from the roof of the National Gallery looking towards Trafalgar Square and Nelson's Column. Executed solely in black and white, they are monumental works, the largest of which is over seven metres across.

Virtue is a landscape painter whose relationship to the National Gallery collection runs deep, being inspired by Turner, Constable, Rubens and other painters of the great European landscape tradition.