Face to Face SPRING 2008 Vanity Fair Portraits Brilliant Women: 18th Century Bluestockings My Favourite Portrait by Annie Lennox Yousuf Karsh From the Director I am very pleased that we are renewing our relationship with Herbert Smith LLP as our Spring Season sponsors for 2008. This follows from our successful partnership with the law firm during our 150th Anniversary year in 2006, and before that their sponsorship of the Cecil Beaton and Lee Miller exhibitions. This spring we feature Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913–2008, which will then go on to be shown in Edinburgh, Los Angeles and Canberra. This special exhibition charts the magazine’s particular tradition of commissioning photographic portraits by some of the most respected photographers over the years, from Edward Steichen, Cecil Beaton and Man Ray in the early period, through to Annie Leibovitz and Mario Testino, who have appeared in Vanity Fair since it was re-launched in 1983. The celebrated subjects of these portraits range from Albert Einstein and Greta Garbo to Arthur Miller and Madonna. COVER AND ABOVE In March, Brilliant Women: 18th-Century Bluestockings, in the Porter Gallery, Louis Armstrong investigates the fascinating group of intellectual women – amongst them Elizabeth by Anton Bruehl, 1935 Montagu and Elizabeth Carter – who cultivated an ethos of learning and virtue in the © Condé Nast Publications Inc. / Image Courtesy National Portrait salons of London. These women were highly regarded by their contemporaries, but Gallery, Smithsonian Institution / have in some cases lost the recognition they deserve. The exhibition consists of rarely Art Resource, NY seen portraits and graphic satires, combined with personal artefacts and other items of popular culture, and evaluates how the Bluestockings redefined traditional notions This work will feature in Vanity Fair Portraits: of female achievement, attributes and, succeeded in advancing their work through Photographs 1913–2008 their use of portraiture. on display until 26 May 2008. Complementing the historical portraits from the eighteenth century is a display of Modern Muses, with twenty-one portrait photographs by Bryan Adams, commissioned by sponsor BlackBerry®, celebrating a number of influential women today including Annie Lennox, Zaha Hadid, Darcey Bussell and Kanya King. Through collaboration with the UK Film Council to encourage greater diversity in the British film industry, in April we will be displaying Want To See More of Me?, photographic portraits of black film actors by Donald MacLellan. Also in the spring the Gallery is working with Fraser James, on his ‘4 the Record’ initiative, which seeks wider recognition for the achievements of black actors whether in film, television or the theatre. From 20 March Anthony Caro Portraits will be on display in Room 32. This display was previously highlighted in the Summer 2007 issue of Face to Face, but through unforeseen problems with the shipping and installation of the bronze sculptures we are only now able to complete the project. The bronze heads of Caro’s wife Sheila are a fascinating glimpse into the figurative style of an artist who is renowned for his abstract work. The National Portrait Gallery is the first London-based organisation to receive the Arts and Business ‘Invest’ grant, for a specific project involving art workshops with young patients at hospital schools. This scheme has been made possible with the additional support of the Lehman Brothers Foundation Europe. Linked to Lehman’s sponsorship of the Pop Art Portraits exhibition, the workshops have involved several artists, such as Sir Peter Blake, spending time with children to create animated portraits. Sandy Nairne DIRECTOR I LOVE THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, and for This is a place where we can take an opportunity to MY FAVOURITE me, going for a visit there is always something of a look at them eye to eye. We can get up close. Through PORTRAIT treat. I love the building, its proportions and location the medium of the artist, whether via camera lens and and each time I go there, it feels like a discovery, film, or canvas, brush and paint, each portrait reveals ANNIE almost as if I’ve never been there before. One thing something about its subject. Perhaps we can glean LENNOX that does remain steadily familiar is that reassuringly a sense of their essence – through a representation solid quality, exemplified by its Victorian architecture. of an aspect of their physical form, maybe we can I’m still trying to come to terms with its modern spot their strengths or even their vulnerabilities. extension, though. We can admire, assess, recall, reminisce and then make abstract contact or connection. I was given the task of writing about one particular portrait of my choice – anything I felt responsive to. Or, perhaps, they will remain inscrutable, existing ‘That should be easy,’ I thought . but I assure you, imperviously in two-dimensional portrait form, behind it is not. the confines of glass. I started to panic. Perhaps I had bitten off more than I could assimilate! Walking methodically through each room, I felt confident that I would quickly identify my own So here I am, writing something slightly different. It is Singer and songwriter Annie personal favourite. I thought it would stand out more of an impression, a broad sweep of the place. Lennox has received numerous and proclaim loudly . ‘Hello . it is me!’. This is the space where authors, poets, painters, kings, awards throughout her long career, including the Ivor Novello The problem is that every portrait is unique and queens, princesses and princes collide with artists or Award, eight Brits including special. Each one has a story of its own to tell. I found their muses, models, social icons, politicians and pop Lifetime Achievement Award, myself thrown off-track by a plethora of questions: stars. You can encounter everyone, from Margaret three Grammys, and more Thatcher to Mandy Rice-Davies. Everybody’s there, recently, an Oscar for her work What essentially is a portrait? And what is a portrait from times past right up to the present day. I could on Lord Of The Rings. gallery anyway? What have all these people come spend hours delving into its treasures and reflecting. here looking for? And what do they think they’ll find ABOVE in all this looking? So if you want a piece about one particular portrait, Annie Lennox, 2007 just tell me WHICH ONE!? by Bryan Adams Then I got an answer. This is a place to commune with © Bryan Adams the good, the great and possibly even the notorious. Annie Lennox MODERN MUSES is an essay of 21 new portraits all rising stars as Anne Marie Duff,founder of the MOBO MODERN MUSES captured by Bryan Adams over just four days during Awards Kanya King and the artist Annie Morris. late 2007. These new portraits provide the Gallery 13 March – 15 June 2008 The sponsor of Brilliant Women, BlackBerry, has also with an ideal opportunity to complement the artists, Room 35 made possible the Modern Muses project and enabled writers and social activists featured within the Brilliant us to work with Bryan Adams to facilitate this new Commissioned by Women: 18th-Century Bluestockings exhibition with body of work. BlackBerry their counterparts similarly contributing to today’s rich social fabric. Marc Carter DISPLAY CO-ORDINATOR Historically, the term ‘muse’ has been taken to mean those women from Greek mythology who embody LEFT AND BELOW specifically the arts and inspire the processes of Dr Scilla Elworthy, 2007 creation. Yet today, the same term more loosely Annie Morris, 2007 applies to any woman from any walk of life whose by Bryan Adams successes or endeavours provides some beacon © Bryan Adams of inspiration for others – and as such this portfolio of images encompasses artists and businesswomen, actresses and campaigners, and fashion designers, models, journalists and art dealers, who individually and as a group certainly do contribute much to the society we all now live within. The portraits also aim to capture not only those at the very top of their various professions, or those that are household names, but also individuals who are creating equally inspirational energy at the beginning of their own respective careers, or within projects or initiatives that are far less commonly on the front pages or our TV screens. Consequently, the essay comprises portraits of individuals such Annie Lennox, Vivienne Westwood and Erin O’Connor; Baroness Hogg, Lady Carole Bamford and the Hon Hilary Weston; alongside such VANITY FAIR THE GALLERY HAS WORKED closely in partnership with In this exhibition we trace the idea of public image PORTRAITS Vanity Fair for the last three years to realise the across a hundred years in one publication. stunning exhibition Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs EB: In selecting images for the exhibition what were PHOTOGRAPHS 1913–2008, which opens on 14 February 2008. the main criteria you and Terence Pepper used? 1913–2008 Terence Pepper, the Gallery’s Photographs Curator, formed a close dialogue with Vanity Fair’s David DF: There were three: is the portrait itself iconic; Until 26 May 2008 Friend (Editor of Creative Development), and the does the portrait reveal something really surprising Wolfson Gallery exhibition brings together for the first time the that in hindsight tells us a lot about the artist or the two eras of the magazine’s incomparable collection subject or the period itself; does the picture offer Admission £10 of photographic portraits. The show also celebrates a definitive insight into the photographer, the subject Concessions £9/£8 the ninety-fifth anniversary of the inaugural issue and or the time. Once we had established our selection, Free for Gallery Supporters the twenty-fifth anniversary of the magazine’s Graydon Carter and Sandy Nairne either, elaborated Sponsored by Burberry re-launch in 1983.