Do artists ever retire?

I'd be retired now if I hadn't already retired early. Having a BIG birthday makes me want to reflect on how I want my retirement to be.

Plus I've been looking around at what has already been said about artists and retirement

I thought it might be helpful for me to do a bit of research and also write down my conclusions so far.

There's also an invitation at the end - at the end of the section on "Do artists retire?" which invites you to comment.

My retirement

A new perspective on being older.
Note I've only got the odd grey hair
and not a lot of wrinkles in this selfie from
the 72nd floor of The Shard.
Can I really be this old?

I had a splendid birthday on my BIG Birthday Day Out.

We started at Tate Britain with the new exhibition about Turner - Late Turner - Paintings Set free.

Interestingly this focuses on the themes, approaches adopted and created after the age of 60.

However the exhibition starts by pointing out that

Turner turned 60 in 1835, an age then regarded as marking the onset of senility

My other half pointed this out to me with a big beam on his face. I giggled.

However as I wandered through room after room of oil paintings and watercolour paintings and sketchbooks by Turner I began to feel a little overwhelmed by what it is possible to do after 60!

My current thinking is that I approached my early retirement pretty much as another project in a career that had always involved lots of hard work and some very long hours.

The perennial comment about this blog has always been one of amazement at how I fit it all in. My traditional riposte has been I'm not that fond of housework! The reality is that it takes a lot of time.

However my big birthday and my recent health scare means I'm now beginning to think I'd like to slow down a bit and exercise more and take more time out to reflect and ponder. I'd also like to make more art and maybe write some more about art and artists in publications rather than blogs - to my own timetable rather than dictated by a publisher. (I learned a lot when writing my book earlier this year - and writing to somebody else's timetable isn't a process I propose to go through again in a hurry).

I'd certainly like to spend some time documenting what I've learned in the last few years.

To that end the current thinking is there will be fewer blog posts in the future although I will certainly keep this blog going, will still visit exhibition and cover art competitions - but I'll also be taking more breaks and spending more time on my art and on reading my art books and writing my own books. Plus more time dedicated to being with "he who must not be bored while I sketch", taking exercise and staying mobile on my awful feet - plus moving home. Library and studio wanted with house attached!

I certainly no longer feel the need to post every day or even five days a week!

Do artists ever retire?

We have numerous examples of famous artists who have continued to paint up until their death.  See if how many painters you can name who were still painting up the end! (Leave your answers below!)

I've also met many artists whose artwork only started to flourish after they retired on the basis this was the first time they had the time and the space to work in a dedicated way.

• Here's a portrait of an alumna beginning her "real work" in retirement posted by Emily Carr University of Art + Design

I've also seen some completely dire artwork produced by senior members of art societies who are still allowed to submit their six works as a member irrespective of the fact that it would never be selected if entered via the open selection process. I've also seen some intelligent moves by some art societies to move towards different arrangements for exhibition and selection for its senior members - and how nice they can do this in a way which continues to pay homage to the seniority of their members.

Articles about artists and retirement

Here are some articles about artists and retirement - and the notion that they never do - plus commentary from me

Jonathan Jones of the The Guardian wrote an article about artists and retirement called Real artists never retire – or do they? He comments on:

• how it can take a lifetime for an artist to learn all the skills
• having acquired the skills you can then work with total freedom
• the prevalence of "late styles" amongst artists
• the fact that some did their most brilliant work in later life

In this article, Barring fate or death, artists are not the retiring types Allan Massie comments on the reasons why artists often fail to stop unless prevented by a health issue. However one wonders whether he is pandering to the conventional notion that artists never retire and never want to retire.

The gallerist Edward Winkleman started an interesting open thread back in 2011 on the topic of Retiring as an Artist | Open Thread. He took the Jonathan Jones article as his starting point and comments that while it may be reassuring to have dealings with somebody who has had the time to learn a lot, nobody expects other professionals to keep working past their retirement date.

The comments he received suggested a very wide variety of perspectives - which certainly suggests that the traditional notion might be true for some but certainly not everybody:

• people who suggested that artists' later works are often the best they ever produce
• queries about whether artists can ever afford to retire (fortunately not an issue which applies to me)
• how a creative activity will always continue when it is aligned with an internal impulse to create
• a wish that some of the artists who have made it big would retire to give others a chance to sell their work!
• being an artist can mean you put yourself under horrendous pressure to produce and sell art - it's very tiring!
• the traditional identity of "the real artist" can be enormously inhibiting to the notion of being able to give up or slow down
• some artists who have worked really hard for 50 years would like permission to slow down
• for some artists means not having to produce art to sell and not having to any more exhibitions

It also includes more than the odd comment which made my hackles rise - so be forewarned if you your main income or pension relates or has related to non-artistic endeavours.

Alan Bamberger (ArtBusiness.com) has a thread about your art as your pension pot. The Benefits of Saving Art - Someday It'll be Your Retirement Fund...and Maybe More

Many artists simply use the proceeds from the sales of saved works to support themselves once they slow down or stop making art altogether.

This highlights how:

• artists should never get rid of their art
• art collectors value the work of successful artists - even the early stuff!
• not everybody wants your latest creations
• you can't do a retrospective without example of your artwork from across the years

A debate website has an ongoing debate about Should famous artists ever retire? - 57% say No!

So what do you think?

• Should artists retire?
• Can artists ever retire?
• Is retirement when you can begin to let go and do what you want to do in terms of creating art?

and finally......

Here's an article about a decorator who painted other people's homes all his life - and decided to do something significant after he retired - Retired decorator paints his house to look like the Sistine Chapel... and he even gives his wheelie bin a Renaissance look

The Big Draw month is October

The Big Draw is the world's biggest drawing festival and is run by the Campaign for Drawing. It's also an annual event which takes place in October each year in UK - and 20 countries around the world.

The Big Draw is Local and International!

The festival runs from 1 October to 2 November across the UK and in 20 other countries, with 280,000 people expected to join in over 1000+ events.

The general aim is to get everybody drawing.

The Big Draw encourages wide-scale public participation in creative activities, engaging people of all ages with collections in museums and galleries, heritage environments and community-based drawing activities.Campaign for Drawing

It's for everybody young or old, those who are learning how to draw for the first time and for those who have forgotten how to draw - as well as those who enjoy drawing on a regular basis.

It got started last Sunday with a big event for kids at the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green sponsored by Faber Castell.  Lots of coloured pencils much in evidence!

Find an event

The events seem to get more adventurous and more innovative every year!

To find out more about what opportunities are local to you you should consult

EITHER The Big Draw Map of UK events - just stick your post code in the map and it will tell you what's happening near to you.

Locations of Big Draw Events in the UK this month

Here's some examples which are happening in London:

• Experimenting with observational drawing, algorithms and natural form - at the Natural History Museum for those aged 16+
• 'Strike a Pose' is a life drawing workshop for all ages featuring black superhero costumes presented at Notting Hill Carnival by Glorious Backstage Arts.
• Draw Walthamstow this weekend for all ages - supported by Jackson Arts

I must confess I do miss the listings they used to have which split out the events for adults from those for kids only, and those which were limited to people associated with a location. I'm not finding it do easy to locate events I might be interested in this year.

A Big Draw event at the V&A

OR The Big Draw Map of International Events there are events happening in:

• Australia
• Belgium
• Brazil
• Hungary
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Spain and 
• United States

You can also

• Add your drawings to our online gallery. Just tag #TheBigDraw via instagram
• Check out The Big Draw Blog for articles on all things drawing
• Share you drawings on Twitter

The Theme for 2014 - It's Our World

The theme of The Big Draw in 2014 is It’s Our World - click the link to find out more. Plus there's an absolutely amazing and very stimulating It's Your Wold MiniMag on Issuu which explains more and provides some suggestions about how 4-19 year olds can participate. You can get a pin code for uploading via a Big Draw event location.

The aim it to encourage everyone to celebrate their environment – rural, urban or coastal – and to explore its sustainability. 

The Big Draw on the Beach - creating land art

Anyone aged 4 – 19 years is invited to put themselves on the map by creating an artwork to celebrate where they live and uploading it onto the It’s Our World Gallery. The aim is to create the UK’s largest online collection of artwork mapping the British Isles, as seen through the eyes of the nation’s future custodians.It's Our World - Celebrating the Environment through art

Hence there's a chance to have their art displayed nationwide in next year's World Environment Day.

The uploaded artwork will be showcased in June 2015 on digital ad screens across the UK. The entire collection will be handed over to The UK Web Archives to be stored for the nation.

Submissions can be sent  from 30 September 2014 to 30 May 2015

• This is part of a wider initiative developed by Business in the Community. 
• These images will be shown on digital screens nationwide next year to celebrate UN World Environment Day (5 June 2015).

The Family Arts Festival

Over the UK half term holidays (between 17 October - 2 November), a collaboration between the Big Draw and the Family Arts Campaign will be supporting the second year of the UK's largest Family Arts Festival. 

There are also The Drawing Inspiration Awards which aim to recognise the most innovative, resourceful and inspiring events from The Big Draw.

Major new Singer Sargent exhibition announced - in London and New York

Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends will be on display next year at the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. I'm sure this will delight many fans of portraiture!

This morning I went to the launch event for this new exhibition which has been five years in the making.  The exhibition is going to be a unique perspective of some 70 paintings and works on paper by John Singer Sargent - one of the greatest portrait painters of all time.

The focus will be on portraits of the artists, writers, actors, dancers, and musicians of his time.  It will review the relationship he had as a painter and an individual with a number of those who were involved with contemporary developments in the arts, music, literature and theatre. It will reveal the depth of his appreciation of culture and his close friendships with many of the leading artists, actors and writers of the time - including Claude Monet, Auguste Rodin, Gabriel Fauré and Robert Louis Stevenson.

Dates for the exhibition - and your diary - are:

• National Portrait Gallery: 12 February - 25 May 2015
• Metropolitan Museum of Art: 29 June - 4 October 2015

The exhibition has been extremely fortunate in the loans promised for the exhibition - many of which come from private collections as well as the permanent collections of some of the world's great art galleries. His great nephew Richard Ormond CBE, co-author of the John Singer Sargent catalogue raisonné, is curator of the exhibition in London - at the Gallery where he used to be The Keeper and Deputy Director. The recently retired Curator of American paintings and sculpture will mastermind the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The original idea behind the exhibition was to provide a different perspective on Sargent the man and to reveal a more thoughtful person behind the portraits that he produced.

There has been a suspicion voiced by some, notably Roger Fry, that Sargent was a superficial painter. There is an explanation of how this view came to be voiced (it relates to a Sargent comment on Fry's exhibition of Post Impressionist paintings) on Natasha Wallace's excellent John Singer Sargent website

An attempt was then made to "airbrush him" out of the development of modern art said Ormond this morning. He also commented that this was despite the fact that some of his later paintings not being unlike those of Cezanne.

He told us that Sargent was a very cultivated man who was immersed in the arts of his time. He was widely read, particularly French literature, and was also deeply musical and an enthusiastic promoter of young musicians. He was also a friend to a very wide range of artists, writers, actors and musicians.

His paintings of his friends are also more intimate and informal unlike the grandest piece portraits he executed for commissions. He could also afford to take a more experimental approach in terms of both composition and application of paint when it came to painting friends.

Sargent was a child of American ex pats. He was born in Florence and lived his life in Europe, visiting most of the major art galleries and art collections while still a child.  He was recognised to be very talented in relation to art while still a child and was sent to study in Paris. Subsequently he became one of the most popular portrait artists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and was regularly commissioned to produce portraits. So much so that by 1907, at the age of 50, he gave up portraiture for the paintings and mural work which he wanted to do. In part because he'd had enough of paintings with "an anxious relative hanging on every brush mark".

His paintings of artists and friends were however another form of portraiture and he continued to paint them long after he gave up portrait commissions. These are more informal and are often painted plein air.

The exhibition will have five sections (and I hope I've got these right below). These focus on:

• Living, studying and working in Paris 1874-1888
• Brief stays in America in 1888 - where he became an established portrait painter
• and Broadway, Worcestershire in 1888 where he lived and worked alongside a group of Anglo Americans
• Living and working in London 1889-1913
• Painting trips with friends 1899-1914

Paris

The exhibition will include his fabulous portrait of his teacher Carolus Duran. This played an enormously important part of the development of his career as a portrait painter after it was exhibited at the Paris salon and praised.

Broadway and painting trips with friends

The Fountain, Villa Torlonia, Frascati, Italy 

by John Singer Sargent, 1907

Copyright: Art Institute of Chicago

Two sections of the exhibition will focus on the portraits and plein air figure groups painted during the time he spent living in Broadway, in Worcestershire and those he painted after 1900 while travelling in Europe during summer and autumns holidays from his portrait commissions.

Typically these holidays took him to Venice, the Alps and the southern Mediterranean countries such as Greece and particularly Corfu.

On the right is a painting which will be in the exhibition of a couple who often focused in his paintings of artists and friends. Close up visitors to the exhibition will be able to see how Sargent painted with dazzling speed while painting plain air.

This is a link to a photo of Sargent painting at Broadway.

London

Drawing of Henry James
by John Singer Sargent
Wikimedia Commons

Paintings in London will include his portrait of his friend the author Henry James which forms part of the NPG Collection.

James was another American living in London. He was a major sponsor of Singer Sargent when he came to live in London - and indeed they lived near one another.  (Sargent lived at 31 Tite Street in Chelsea  and had his studio at 33 Tite Street)

I discovered from Richard in fiction both entry James? Ormond that there is a book by a lady called Adele tanner about how Sargent appears singer Sargent and James were also both Americans who ere in effect outsiders looking in on the social scene in London. They we very close friends and ,iced near to one another in Chelsea.

Key paintings in the exhibition will include two paintings of his friend the Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson (author of Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde) executed at a house in Bournemouth.

Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife (1885) by John Singer Sargent
Collection: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, USA

These will be displayed together for the very first time since they were painted in the 1880s. The inclusion of these paintings will be a particular pleasure for Sandy Nairne, Director of the NPG who is a big fan of the painting of Stevenson and his wife.

Sadly the emphasis is going to be more on his oil paintings rather than his watercolours which I am a huge fan of. Also there are no plans at present to exhibit any of his sketchbooks which I think is a pity. I did however suggest that it would be really wonderful to be able to see at least one of his sketchbooks in the exhibition especially as the focus is on the intimate side of Sargent and viewing sketchbooks generates a level of intimacy and engagement with the artist like nothing else I know.

Nevertheless I very much recommend this as an exhibition to see in 2015 by hook or by crook! I'm expecting it to be very popular.

Note: In 2007 I did a blog project about John Singer Sargent. This is a link to all the posts on this blog which reference John Singer Sargent in some way

Review: Threadneedle Prize Exhibition 2014

I got a little distracted last week by the installation of new technology (yay - a new iMac!) and hence did not post my review of the Threadneedle Prize Exhibition following on from:

• Threadneedle Prize 2014 - The Shortlist
• Tina Jenkins wins Threadneedle Prize 2014
• Interview with Winner of Threadneedle Prize 2014

In any case four Threadneedle posts in one week would have been a bit much!

So here is a visual overview of the exhibition with my comments on what I observed.

Threadneedle Prize Exhibition 2014

The exhibition comprises 63 paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints. You can see them online on the website. Visitors to the exhibition have until 5pm on Tuesday 7 October to vote for their favourite piece to win the £10,000 prize.

Works by Alan Mcgowan, Michael Sydney Moore, Freya Payne and Craig Wylie (shortlisted)

There was a long discussion before the judging started about "What is figurative?"

The consensus was that the judges wanted to give much more emphasis on the figure.

I certainly found this very evident in the content of the works selected for the exhibition.  There's a very strong emphasis on the figure although not every work includes a figure. The works selected demonstrated the diversity that exists in figurative art - with some straying fairly far into the conceptual.

Interestingly, this means that when selectors are trying to achieve diversity that only the very best of paintings of a certain type will be selected. This tends to affect those who paint in a highly realistic way.

However the diversity of selected works is not just about the style of the artwork, it's also about the diversity in the materials and media used and, importantly, how they are used.

Acrylic paint on canvas and stretcher (£4,000) by James Tailor227 x 73 x 80cm
This piece is quite literally made of paint. There is no support other than the stretcher.

By using unconventional stretchers and overlooked but recognizable objects within his work, James is trying to challenge the perception of what a painting is and encompass the world beyond the gallery into his practice. The work does this by moving away from the prototypical canvas and stretcher; a conclusion which is the result of three years of experimentation

Left: The Blade (£15,000) by Shanti Panchal (Watercolour)
- it takes a while to notice the lady has an artificial leg and is wearing a blade.
Middle: Untitled by Tom Jean Webb (£4,000) - this is a drawing on sewn cotton fabric. He also another work in the show.
Right: Two works by Alastair Gordon. 

Work in fabric and materials seem to become more and more popular.

If I'm honest some of the work looks better as a digital print and in the catalogue than they do when seen up close. For example, I'm convinced the selectors must have thought that the two paintings on the right above were a trompe l'oeil and that the wood support was painted - but sadly it's not. Plus even the tape is tape not paint.

Beckett and Bernini (£24,000) by Kim Meredew
Marble and granite (Chair) slate and limestone

By way of contrast, some works are far more impressive up close than as a digital print. This is an amazing work in stone was very impressive. I confess I touched the chair to check it was really marble!

Not all the works are framed. A very strong shortlisted contender for the Threadneedle Prize is hung on bulldog clips and screws in the wall. One wonders whether the reluctance to frame is actually linked to cost of framing and the cost of a courier for a large frame.

The Net (£2,000) by Thomas Allen
charcoal and sanguine, 150 x 240cm
One of the shortlisted works - hung on bulldog clips
The drawing is about the relationship between the artist and his girlfriend conducted over the internet

Another way to look at it is if it's OK to hang oil paintings on a box canvas without a frame why is it not OK to hang a drawing without a frame.  Plus some drawings without a frame have more impact!

The Conductor (£6,000) by Barbara Polderman
Mixed media, 150 x 140 x 50 cm

The very orange figure in a plastic hood in the rear room reminded me very much of the images that have been created about the military prisoners kept at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and, more recently, the images of the orange suited ISIS hostages. Whether that was the intention is another matter.

The opposable big toes in orange velour was also very disturbing!

Small works were displayed extremely well on dark grey walls - and most were presented in a very professional fashion

In general, this year's exhibition has less sculpture than I'm used to seeing - although one was shortlisted for the major prize.

Works by Carol Anderson Knight, Thomas Tichy, David Teager-Portman (shortlisted) and Tom Jean Webb

Many of the works were also very big. In fact I'd say works on the whole were mostly big or small with not a lot in the middle.

Works by Suzy Murphy, Ben Johnson and Morwenna Harrison
These are all sizeable paintings - the two on the left are figurative art without the figures

The exhibition continues until 11th October. It's open every day at the Mall Galleries from 10am to 5pm and admission is free.

The Winner of the £10,000 Visitors' Choice Award will be announced at 7pm, Wednesday 8th October at an Evening Viewing (6-8pm) of The Threadneedle Prize: Figurative Art Today and The Curated Space by Sacha Craddock. Admission Free and there is a Pop-up Bar.

Previous posts re. Threadneedle Prize

The Threadneedle Prize 2014

• Interview with Winner of Threadneedle Prize 2014
• Tina Jenkins wins Threadneedle Prize 2014 - announcement of the winner plus pictures from the Awards Dinner
• Threadneedle Prize 2014 - The Shortlist A review of the artwork and artists shortlisted for the Threadneedle Prize 2014.
• The Threadneedle Prize 2014 - what's changed and how to enter Review of the changes in the 2014 Threadneedle Prize and the Call for Entries.

The Threadneedle Prize 2013

• Clare McCormack and Lisa Wright win Threadneedle Prize 2013
• Threadneedle Prize 2013 - Shortlist announced - a review of the artists and their works shortlisted for the Threadneedle Prize
• Threadneedle Prize 2013 - Selected Artists List of the artists (+ websites) selected to show their paintings and sculpture in the Threadneedle Prize 2013 Exhibition at the Mall Galleries.
• One month left to enter £30000 Threadneedle Prize 03 Jun 2013 Overview of the Call for Entries for the £30000 Threadneedle Prize (2013) for Figurative and Representational Art - deadline 4 July 2013.

Threadneedle Prize 2012 - more from Making A Mark

• Call for Entries for £30000 Threadneedle Prize 2012 - Making a Mark 03 Mar 2012 Overview of the Call for Entries for the £30000 Threadneedle Prize for Figurative and Representational Art - deadline 23 May 2012.
• Threadneedle Prize 2012: Analysis of entries 14 Jun 2012 Threadneedle Prize 2012: An analysis of the art competition entries and artwork and artists selected and comparison to 2011.
• Threadneedle Prize 2012: names of selected artists 21 Aug 2012
• List of selected artists for the Threaneedle Prize Exhibition 2012 - plus links to their websites.
• Threadneedle Prize 2012 - Exhibition now Online 17 Sep 2012
• how to access the Online Exhibition of the Threadneedle Prize 2012.
• Threadneedle Prize 2012 - Shortlisted Artists 25 Sep 2012
• The winners of both The Threadneedle Prize (£30,000) and Visitors' Choice Prize (£10,000) will be announced at a special Awards Dinner on Wednesday 10 October 2012 - to which I'm invited.
• Review: Threadneedle Prize Exhibition 2012 27 Sep 2012
• Review of the Threadneedle Prize for Painting and Sculpture 2012 Exhibition at the Mall Galleries.
• Threadneedle Prize 2012: The Making a Mark Select Six 29 Sep 2012
• An alternative shortlist for the Threadneedle Prize 2012.
• Threadneedle Prize 2012 - the Award Winners 11 Oct 2012
• Ben Greener wins Threadneedle Prize 2012. Robert Truscott wins People's Choice Award 2012.

2011 Threadneedle Prize

• Threadneedle Prize 2011 - a new selection process 26 Apr 2011
• Shortlist for Threadneedle Prize 2011 dominated ...08 Sep 2011
• Threadneedle Prize: The Making a Mark Select ...26 Sep 2011
• Review: Threadneedle Prize Exhibition 2011 22 Sep 2011
• Henriette Simson wins Threadneedle Prize 2011 06 Oct 2011

Note: The Threadneedle Prize was established in 2008 and has the continued support of Threadneedle Investments, a leading international investment manager, demonstrating their long-term commitment to supporting the arts. Through the Threadneedle Foundation, the company is committed to investing in the community, building partnerships that create positive social impact across a range of sectors, with a particular focus on art and education.

Snowdon and the world of arts

Snowdon - a life in view opened today at the National Portrait Gallery.  It continues until 15th June 2015 and admission is free. I anticipate it will be very popular.

Lord Snowdon has always been so much more than the man who married the Queen's sister - and a very unroyal royal at that.

To my mind there is absolutely no question that what he will be ultimately be remembered for in the decades to come is his work. His photography and his design work (eg the Aviary at London Zoo and the Investiture of Prince Charles) set very high standards.

He also recorded the people of his - and our - lifetimes - from high society and those who moved in influential circles to people who were more disadvantaged and had fewer opportunities in life.

I find his photography work to be very impressive in terms of:

• The photographic portraits he creates - many of which are iconic. Those who create portraits have a lot to learn from him
• The topics and subject matter he covers - in this exhibition it's mostly people in the arts and artists of various kinds
• His collaboration around specific projects for publications such as the Sunday Times e.g. the plight of older people and mobility issues for disabled people.

He has also been a significant contributor of photos of notable people to the National Portrait Gallery for some time.

• They now have a collection of some 267 of his photographs. 
• The last tranche came in a gift of 130 photographs in 2013.

Frances von Hofmannstal and Helen Trompeteler
at this morning's preview

This new exhibition is intended to celebrate that gift. It has been curated by Helen Trompeteler, the NPG's Assistant Curator of Photographs in close consultation with Snowdon's daughter, Lady Frances von Hofmannstal (Note to the Daily Mail - NOT Lady Sarah Chatto!). 

In recent years Frances assisted with the selection of the photographs which formed the recent donation to the NPG and has been responsible for the creation of the Snowdon Archive called Snowdon Review (a website well worth reviewing in depth - it includes some stunning photographs of well known artists). This has been an initiative to organise and record his work online while he is still alive, based on the meticulous records and the masses of photographs kept at his home in Launceston Place.  She has also been influential in the compilation of the book which has been published today in association with the exhibition (although this is not a catalogue).

The exhibition

The exhibition includes:

• 'studio portraits' taken over the course of some 50 years between the 1950s and the 1990s and
• selections from Private View which was Snowdon’s important 1965 examination of the London art world created in collaboration with art critic John Russell and Bryan Robertson, then director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery.

Private View examined just why London had become, along with Paris and New York, one of the three art capitals of the world. Looking at both the senior British artists as well as the new generation of Op, Pop and Abstract artists, the book - with its combination of Lord Snowdon's photographs and Germano Facetti's typography - established a bold, new visual language.

National Portrait Gallery

Unsurprisingly, the photos donated to the NPG are of "names" i.e. being 'notable is the basic qualification for being a sitter who is included in the National Portrait Gallery collection.

The exhibition starts with a very small section of photos which provide some context for his royal connection - in marrying the Queen's sister. 

Antony Armstrong Jones, 1st Earl Snowdon
by Cecil Beaton

This includes a photo of Antony Armstrong Jones by Cecil Beaton (see above), the first photo Snowdon ever took of Prince Charles for his 8th birthday and his first commission to photograph the Queen (1957).

We are then treated to a cavalcade of photographs of luminaries from the past 50+years. I found the placement of two great eccentrics of the English speaking world next to one another to be inspired. Below you can see Vita Sackville West and Peter Cook.

The Writing Corner
Vita Sackville West (1892-1962), author, poet, gardener and gardening correspondent 
and Peter Cook (1937-1995) actor, satirist, writer and comedian

Then we have an unpublished photograph which records the fabulous fashion designers from the 60s with a notation next to it of who's who.

The fashion designers of the 1960s

One long wall is devoted to his exhibition related to his Private View project in the 1960s which sought to record the people working in the arts in London - with a view to trying to explain why it was the visual arts in London were so good.

The wall of photographs from 'Private View'

There are also photos of leading edge art colleges (Ealing) and galleries (Whitechapel) and galleries (Helen Lessore).

Anthony Blunt (1907-1983)

There's an absolutely amazing photo of Antony Blunt which might be said to be prescient in its design and content. Blunt, for the uninitiated, is the art historian who also became the Keeper of the Queen's Pictures while at the same time being a Soviet Spy. At the same time, he leaked British secrets to the Russian NKVD who he joined in 1937 two years prior to joining MI5!

There is also an album on display which records the making of the exhibition and includes photos of snowdon at work on his photographs in his studio at Kensington Palace.

Snowdon's youngest daughter, Frances von Hofmannstal, explains the album relating to Private View

There's a collection of four photos of notable male sculptors (see top right) with Barbara Hepworth pictured alongside Kenneth Clarke (of 'Civilisation').

In the inner room the are a number of photos of ballet dancers, artists and authors including a stunning one of David Bowie and another of Terence Stamp.

(clockwise from left) Terence Stamp, David Bowie, Julie Christie, John Hurt and Charlotte Rampling

Overall I can highly recommend the exhibition to all those who enjoy portrait photography and those who lived through the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

A new book 

Today also saw the launch and publication of a superb new monograph about him and his photographs.

I also recommend you look at the book published in association with the exhibition. It's not cheap costing £50, however it includes some amazing photos of the art world in the second half of the 20th century. Plus it has some very interesting and different perspectives on Snowdon the photographer provided by various people from different times in his life.

I've bought a copy simply because it's a book about the people I have followed during my lifetime and includes many photographs of artists and sculptors, musicians and actors, writers and editors.

SNOWDON By Antony Armstrong Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon.
Foreword by Graydon Carter Introduction by Patrick Kinmonth Preface by Frances von Hofmannsthal Contributions by Grace Coddington, Tom Ford, Philippe Garner, Suzy Menkes, A.A. Gill, Alexandra Shulman, Nicolas Ghesquière, André Leon Talley and more. Hardcover / 10” x 13” / 368 pages / 175 colour and B&W photos. Price: £50.00 Rizzoli New York / ISBN: 978-0-847-84328-2

NOTE:

1. For those who'd like an insight into how Snowdon is today, can I recommend you read this article Tony Snowdon is the lord of the lens in The Australian
2. Exhibitions of the work of Lord Snowdon at the National Portrait Gallery

• Snowdon: A Life in View Until 21 June 2015
• Photographs by Snowdon: A Retrospective 25 February - 4 June 2000
• Private View 24 September 2007 - 16 March 2008