National Portrait Gallery – Photos & Portraits
BP and Taylor Wessing Portraits, Irving Penn and The Beatles on View
Sep 28, 2009
With more than 1,000 works on display, spanning more than 750 years of history, the National Portrait Gallery is sure to offer something for everybody during the 2009/2010 season.
New exhibitions will feature the Beatles and David Bowie, the BP Portrait Awards, portraits by Irving Penn and an exhibition of Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize winners of 2009.
Beatles to Bowie: the 60s Exposed
A major exhibition will feature 150 photographic portraits and 150 items of ephemera relating to the 1960s. The exhibition will be arranged chronologically in ten sections, one for each year of the decade.
Items on display will include record sleeves, illustrated sheet music and magazines. Portraits will include The Beatles, The Kinks, Pink Floyd, Billy Fury, Cliff Richard, Marianne Faithfull, Jimi Hendrix, Lulu, Cilla Black and David Bowie by photographers such as Fiona Adams, Philip Townsend, Cecil Beaton, Norman Parkinson and many others.
- Beatles to Bowie will be open from 15th October 2009 to 24th January 2010. Further information can be found here. Admission £11, Concessions £10/£9, Free for Gallery Supporters.
Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2009
Photographers from around the world enter this competition every year. Prize winners are chosen by a distinguished judging panel and the winner receives a prize of £12,000. Fifty portraits will be selected for exhibition later in the year from a wide range of images including Girl by Mirjana Vrbaski (2009) and Rosie Bancroft (2008) by Paul Floyd Blake.
The exhibition will also feature the winner of the Godfrey Argent Award presented to a photographer aged between 18 and 25. Visitors will have a chance to see work by both established and emerging photographers.
- The display will be on view from 5th November 2009 to 14th February 2010. Admission will be free
Irving Penn Portraits
Irving Penn has been photographing major cultural figures for the last seventy years. This exhibition will show more than 120 prints including many from among his early portraits that appeared in Vogue magazine in 1944, as well as images created recently.
Penn's sitters include Truman Capote, Christian Dior, Duke Ellington, Alfred Hitchcock, Al Pacino, Edith Piaf, Pablo Picasso and a host of other famous names.
- Irving Penn Portraits will be on view from 18th February - 31st May 2010. Admission £10, Concessions £9/£8, Free for Gallery Supporters.
BP Portrait Award 2010
The BP Portrait Award is the art world's most prestigious prize. The competition, now in its 30th year, attracted more than 1,900 entries in 2009. These were narrowed down to 56 portraits which were displayed in the BP Portrait Award annual exhibition. The 2009 winners were:
- First prize: Peter Monkman for his portrait Changeling 2. The painting is part of a series of portraits of his daughter, Anna, portraying her at various stages during her life. The artist received £25,000 plus a commission (worth £4,000) at the National Portrait Gallery Trustees' discretion.
- Second prize: Michael Gaskell for Tom. The artist received £8,000.
- Third prize: Annalisa Avancini for Manuel. The artist received £6,000.
- A special prize, the BP Young Artist Award, rewards the work of entrants aged between 18 and 30. The 2009 prize, of £5,000, went to Mark Jameson for his portrait, Benfica Blue.
The 2010 competition will open for entries in December 2009 and full details can be obtained from the NPG.
- The BP Portrait Award 2010, featuring winners and selected portraits, will be on view from 24th June to 12th September 2010, exact dates to be confirmed. Admission to the display will be free.
Further details of the above exhibitions and displays can be obtained from the National Portrait Gallery.
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