Oxford University is replacing portraits of famous men with gay, female and black icons to counter its 'male, pale and stale' image, it has emerged.

Earlier this year David Cameron, the Prime Minister, led calls for the university to take more ethnic minority students as figures revealed Oxford had only taken 27 black undergraduate students in 2014.

It followed calls from the Rhodes Must Fall movement to ‘decolonise’ the university’s curriculum.

'Suitable subjects'

The university has commissioned dozens of new portraits at a cost of £900 each, the Sunday Times reported. Staff and students have been ask to nominate ‘suitable subjects’ by the end of this week, it added. Separately, colleges already have new pictures and paintings of prominent figures, including the portrait of Libby Lane, the first female Anglican bishop, at St Peter’s College.