LONDON—The National Portrait Gallery is trying to raise £350,000 ($618,000) to buy Marc Quinn's 2006 self-portrait made from frozen blood, reports the Press Association. Quinn made his first blood head, titled Self, in 1991, and has continued to make a new cast, using eight or nine pints of his own blood, every five years to document his aging.

National Portrait Gallery Director Sandy Nairne said, "Marc Quinn's Self is a work of international significance — a brilliant and poignant extension to the genre of self-portraiture." The gallery said the work would be displayed with its contemporary collection, among an extensive collection of self-portraits from the past 500 years. Quinn's work would address new representations of the human figure in contemporary culture. 

The Art Fund has offered a £100,000 grant, and the National Portrait Gallery has come up with £50,000 on its own, but it still needs to raise £200,000 by December 31 to acquire the work from London's White Cube gallery.