From Judi to Edna: the women who electrified the 70s – in pictures... https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/oct/16/jud...
Judi! Edna! Glenda! Women who lit up the 70s 7 in pictures In 1977, the National Portrait Gallery staged a landmark exhibition, featuring 90 portraits of eminent British women photographed by Mayotte Magnus. The gallery is now updating the project with Illuminating Women, which runs until 24 March
Main image: Judi Dench by Mayotte Magnus. Photograph: National Portrait Gallery London
Tue 16 Oct 2018 07.00 BST
Novelist, short-story writer and playwright Edna O’Brien was born in Ireland and moved to London in 1959. Magnus posed O’Brien under one of the sitter’s throws that she found to be “indicative of loneliness”, echoing the painting by Clifford Hall that Magnus thought made evident the writer’s need for “safe isolation”. Chelsea, 1976All images: Mayotte Magnus/National Portrait Gallery London
From Judi to Edna: the women who electrified the 70s – in pictures... https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/oct/16/jud...
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Magnus’s humorous photograph of Judi Dench alongside a statue whose hair mimics her own was taken in the year Dench was hailed as a “comic actress of consummate skill” for her RSC performances in The Comedy of Errors and Much Ado about Nothing. The churchyard of St John-at-Hampstead , 1977
From Judi to Edna: the women who electrified the 70s – in pictures... https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/oct/16/jud... Writer, critic and cultural historian, Marina Sarah Warner worked as a journalist and is the author both of novels and non-fiction. Her 1994 Reith Lectures were later published
2 of 14 as Managing Monsters: Six Myths of Our Time. Magnus photographed Warner pregnant,24/10/2018 11:06 alluding to the gestation of a child and a book. The Chinese figurines in the frame are a reference to Warner’s biography The Dragon Empress (1972). 1977, printed 2014
From Judi to Edna: the women who electrified the 70s – in pictures... https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/oct/16/jud...
Born in Stoke-on-Trent, Glenys Barton trained at Royal College of art and became one of the few sculptors working in ceramics in the 1970s. Magnus noted that “the deep thoughtfulness” on Barton’s face is “often present in the faces she creates”. Essex, 1989, 3 of 14 printed 2014 24/10/2018 11:06
American-born Liliane Lijn, a pioneer of kinetic art, moved to London in 1966. Magnus’s use of reflections in this portrait alludes to Lijn’s scientific approach and her interest in the nature of light. Photographed in her studio with artworks Waveguide, Threes, First Figure of Light and Second Figure of Light, Lijn was preparing for the Hayward Annual (1978). Camden, 1978, printed 2014
From Judi to Edna: the women who electrified the 70s – in pictures... https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/oct/16/jud...
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Beryl Bainbridge was a prolific novelist characterised by black humour in her works and her unconventional image. Magnus photographed Bainbridge at her home at Albert Street, Camden. It was filled with dark wooden furniture, Victoriana and family photographs. Camden, 1981, printed 2014
From Judi to Edna: the women who electrified the 70s – in pictures... https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/oct/16/jud...
Margaret Drabble published her first novel, A Summer Birdcage, in 1963. Her early works describe the life of young women and the conflict between motherhood and intellectual 5 of 14 challenges. Magnus chose to express the domesticity of Drabble’s life, between the 24/10/2018 11:06 writer’s marriages to actor Clive Swift and biographer Sir Michael Holroyd. Hampstead, 1976
From Judi to Edna: the women who electrified the 70s – in pictures... https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/oct/16/jud...
6 of 14 Tina Brown’s literary talent was recognised while she was still an undergraduate at 24/10/2018 11:06 Oxford. From 1979, at the age of 25, Brown edited Tatler, transforming it into a modern glossy magazine. She gained further prominence in America as the editor of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker. Magnus recalled that Brown was ‘very bubbly, sure of her destiny and so prettily feminine.’ London, 1977, printed 2014
Glenda Jackson won Oscars for performances in Women in Love (1970) and A Touch of Class (1973). Jackson was Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate from 1992 to 2010 and for Hampstead and Kilburn from 2010 until her retirement in 2015. Magnus, who described Jackson as a ‘sad clown’, captured the actress’s physical and inner strength as she prepared to play the poet Stevie Smith. 1977
From Judi to Edna: the women who electrified the 70s – in pictures... https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/oct/16/jud...
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Born in Ghana, Margaret Busby read English in London and in 1967 became Britain’s first black woman publisher when she founded Allison & Busby with Clive Allison in Soho. They published many noted black writers including CLR James, Sam Greenlee and Rosa Guy. Busby has been a campaigner for diversity in publishing since the 1980s when she co-founded GAP (Greater Access to Publishing). Soho, 1977
From Judi to Edna: the women who electrified the 70s – in pictures... https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/oct/16/jud...
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Broadcaster, journalist, writer and Labour party peer, Dame Joan Bakewell rose to fame as the presenter of BBC2’s Late Night Line-Up in the 1960s, becoming known for her intelligent approach and appealing delivery. In 2008 she was awarded a DBE and appointed a voice for older people. Primrose Hill, 1978, printed 2014
From Judi to Edna: the women who electrified the 70s – in pictures... https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/oct/16/jud...
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Verity Bargate established the Soho theatre on Old Compton Street with her husband Frederick Proud in 1969 with a policy of offering little-known works for low ticket prices. From 1975, Bargate became the sole artistic director, promoting numerous careers. When she later took up writing, it coincided with a diagnosis of cancer. Magnus recalled; ‘I sensed such a sadness in that young woman, as if she was already looking into the world from the outside...’ 1978, printed 2014
From Judi to Edna: the women who electrified the 70s – in pictures... https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/oct/16/jud...
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Through her writing, Nadine Gordimer considered the moral and racial issues arising from apartheid in her native South Africa. In 1991, she won the Nobel Prize for literature. Magnus photographed her against a black and white backdrop to illustrate the author’s passionate part in the anti-apartheid movement. 1978, printed 2014
From Judi to Edna: the women who electrified the 70s – in pictures... https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/oct/16/jud...
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The daughter of architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, Elisabeth Lutyens took to music at an early age and studied at the Royal College of Music. Despite periods of relative poverty and the need to work in isolation she was a prolific and versatile composer of chamber concertos, radio and film scores and opera. Magnus’s linear composition refers to Lutyen’s pioneering use of serial technique. Hampstead, 1976
From Judi to Edna: the women who electrified the 70s – in pictures... https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/oct/16/jud...
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Actor Janet Suzman moved to London in 1959 from South Africa, where the experience of apartheid made her ‘militantly liberal’. Suzman’s numerous television roles in the 1960s and 1970s are alluded to in Magnus’s multifaceted image. London, 1977
From Judi to Edna: the women who electrified the 70s – in pictures... https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/oct/16/jud...
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Topics Art and design Women
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