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No stranger to challenging events and lifting the nation’s spirits, Coward’s sixty- year career encompassed two World Wars Matt Crockett and the Great Depression and once again, © he offers light, laughter, and beauty in dark times. This fresh and vibrant look at one of the UK’s most popular playwrights and songwriters also reveals new facets to the man and his work that speak to our own time – from his championing of the work of women and black artists to the role that his identity as a gay man played in the formation of his unique stage persona. The final section of Noël Coward: Art & Doris Zinkeisen (1897-1991) Self Portrait 1929. Style celebrates his continuing impact The exhibition vividly demonstrates upon contemporary design and fashion. the pivotal role that art and style played in The exhibition, which will run until Coward’s life on- and off-stage, the NOËL COWARD TAKES CENTRE 23 December, brings together rarely-seen enormous impact that he had upon the STAGE AS LONDON REOPENS original artwork and costumes, fashion and culture of his time, and the Noël Coward: Art & Style, the photographs, documents, three- ways in which his visual legacy and fascinating new exhibition which dimensional objects, audio and video to influence resonate to this day. celebrates the visual impact of Noël tell the story, all in a theatrically immersive It is curated by Brad Rosenstein, whose Coward’s life and work, is now on view at environment true to Coward’s spirit. acclaimed exhibition, Star Quality: The Guildhall Art Gallery. Highlights of the show include a World of Noël Coward, was seen in San The free exhibition, originally meticulous new reconstruction of the Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York. scheduled to open in summer 2020 to iconic white satin dress that Molyneux Tickets are free, and must be booked in mark the 100th anniversary of Coward’s designed in 1930 for advance for specific visitor time slots, West End debut as a playwright, brings a in Private Lives, (pictured), commissioned at www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/noelcoward wealth of dazzling visuals and effervescent especially for this exhibition; a never- wit to London as the capital reopens. before-exhibited gold lamé theatre cape by Lucile (Titanic survivor Lady Duff Gordon) from 1920; and Coward’s sheet music,

including an original page of his handwritten lyrics for Mad Dogs and Englishmen, and rare photos from productions, portraits, and fashion shoots. In realising his work, Coward joined forces with some of the finest couturiers and theatrical designers of his time, from , Norman Hartnell, Photo: James Abbe, Courtesy of The James Abbe Archive. Gertrude Lawrence and Noel Coward , and to Cecil performing his sketch, ‘Rain Before Seven’, Beaton, Oliver Messel, Doris Zinkeisen, in the Charlot revue London Calling! Irene Sharaff, Oliver Smith and long-time

(1923). Costumes by Edward Molyneux. collaborator Gladys Calthrop. by Coward in BOOM. Suit Worn

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