The Naked Portrait 1900-2007, which opens to the public from September 29 to December 6, will display sculpted, photographed and painted pieces which engage with the subject's specific identity.

Curator Martin Hammer from Edingburgh University said: 'The inspiration for the exhibition was quite simply noticing that a surprising number of major artists and photographers had created naked portraits, and that no one to date had told this general story.

"The title for the exhibition is borrowed from Lucian Freud who has called several of his pictures Naked Portrait.

"But naked implies warts and all specificity and individuality, whereas nude suggests idealisation and generalisation, in the classical tradition."

Subjects include Linford Christie, Germaine Greer, Dustin Hoffman, John Lennon and Marilyn Monroe.

Some of the images are of lesser renowned subjects, known intimately by the creators, and other pieces represent the artists themselves.

More than 70 artists of the last hundred years have produced works included in the exhibition, some of which are loaned from collectors and galleries from across Europe and America.

Mr Hammer said: "There are wonderful works by artists such as Pierre Bonnard, Lucian Freud, Stanley Spencer, and Gerhard Richter; or Diane Arbus, Emmet Gowin and John Coplans amongst the photographers.

"But it's been very exciting to discover artists I didn't know about previously, such as the American Gary Schneider, who does long-exposure, large-scale photographs, or British contemporaries like Jemima Stehli."

Each piece reveals the widespread interest in the naked portraiture genre during the last century and examines the changing cultural and moral climate of the period.

Themes within the exhibition of more than 160 pieces include challenging the notion of ideal physical beauty, age identity, the artistic exploration of love and desire, the projection of "otherness" in terms of social class, race, or celebrity and the fundamentals of the human ageing process and mortality.

The Naked Portrait 1900-2007 is organised by the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh in partnership with Compton Verney.

Admission to the exhibition costs £7 for adults, £5 for concessions, £4 for students, £2 for children aged from five to 16 and children under five get in for free. Family tickets are also available for £16. For advanced bookings call 645500, or for more information visit:

www.comptonverney.org.uk