New exhibition of portrait photography at London’s NPG

Inspirational British individuals who have made it to the very top of their professions are celebrated in a new display of recently acquired and previously un-exhibited photographs at the National Portrait Gallery.

Achievement: New Photographs 2011-2013, is on display until 5 February 2014, and showcases portraits of figures who have gained recognition for being at the forefront of the fields in which they work, including writer and presenter Charlie Brooker by Chris Floyd; actress Gina McKee by Mark Harrison and film director Sam Mendes photographed on the set of Skyfall by Anderson & Low.

The display also includes a selection of portraits from two important portfolios by women photographers Nancy Honey and Anita Corbin, which aim to document some of the most influential and successful women in Britain.

Nancy Honey's 100 Leading Ladies project is an investigation into influential British women over the age of fifty. Her sitters have helped transform the perception of what is possible for women to achieve in their lives and were photographed in places selected by the subjects. Portraits  include writer Deborah Moggach; Lynne Franks, founder of one of the most successful fashion PR agencies in the UK and Parveen Kumar, president of the British Medical Association.

First Women by Anita Corbin began three years ago with the aim to record women who were the first to achieve status within their fields. The project is ongoing until 2018, a date chosen to coincide with the centenary of the 1918 Act that first gave women the right to vote. Subjects on display include Baroness Scotland, the first woman to be appointed as Queen's Counsel and the first woman Attorney General; economist Dame Helen Alexander, appointed as the first woman President of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and Jean Venables, who in 2009 became the first female President of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE).

ACHIEVEMENT: NEW PHOTOGRAPHS 2011 – 2013
Room 37a until 5 January 2014, National Portrait Gallery, London
Admission free

www.npg.org.uk

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.