Image courtesy of National Portrait Gallery

Vogue 100: A Century of Style at National Portrait Gallery

Vogue 100: A Century of Style will showcase the remarkable range of photography that has been commissioned by British Vogue since it was founded in 1916, with over 280 prints from the Condé Nast archive and international collections being brought together for the first time to tell the story of one of the most influential fashion magazines in the world. Decade by decade, the exhibition will explore British Vogue’s unfaltering position at the forefront of new fashion, its dedication to the best in design, and its influence on the UK’s wider cultural stage during some of the most inventive and exciting periods in style, taste, the arts and society. Exquisite vintage prints from the early twentieth century, ground-breaking photographs from renowned fashion shoots, unpublished work and original magazines will be brought together in this first retrospective survey of the celebrated magazine.

Image courtesy of National Portrait Gallery

Vogue 100: A Century of Style will include work by many of the leading twentieth-century photographers, including Cecil Beaton, Lee Miller, Irving Penn and Snowdon. More recent work by celebrated photographers David Bailey, Corinne Day, Patrick Demarchelier, Nick Knight, Herb Ritts, Mario Testino, Tim Walker and Albert Watson will also be included, reinforcing British Vogue’s keen editorial eye and dedication to commissioning world-class photography, as well as its role in nurturing new talent. The exhibition will also include many of the faces that have shaped the cultural landscape of the twentieth century, from Henri Matisse to Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and Damien Hirst; Marlene Dietrich to Gwyneth Paltrow; Lady Diana Cooper to Lady Diana Spencer; and Fred Astaire to David Beckham. Also featured in the exhibition will be the fashion designers that defined the looks of the century, including Dior, Saint Laurent and McQueen.

Image courtesy of National Portrait Gallery

Highlights of the exhibition include the entire set of prints from Corinne Day’s controversial Kate Moss underwear shoot, taken in 1993 at the pinnacle of the ‘grunge’ trend; Peter Lindbergh’s famous 1990 cover shot that defined the supermodel era; a series of exceptional Second World War photographs by Vogue’s official war correspondent, Lee Miller; a rare version of Horst’s famous ‘corset’ photograph from 1939, which inspired the video for Madonna’s hit song Vogue; and vintage prints by the first professional fashion photographer, Baron de Meyer. Theatre and opera set designer Patrick Kinmonth will act as Exhibition Designer & Artistic Director for the exhibition, taking visitors on an immersive and imaginative journey through the greatest moments in the history of British Vogue. British Vogue was founded in 1916, when the First World War made transatlantic shipments of American Vogue impossible and its proprietor, Condé Nast, authorised a British edition.

Image courtesy of National Portrait Gallery

It was an immediate success, and over the following ten decades of uninterrupted publication, the magazine continued to mirror its times and put fashion in the context of the wider world – the austerity and optimism that followed the two world wars, the ‘Swinging London’ scene in the sixties, the radical seventies and the image-conscious eighties. In the magazine’s second century, it remains at the cutting edge of photography and design. The exhibition is curated by Robin Muir who is a Contributing Editor to British Vogue. Vogue 100: A Century of Style has been organised by the National Portrait Gallery in collaboration with British Vogue as part of the magazine’s centenary celebrations.

National Portrait Gallery
London
Until May 22, 2016

more. www.npg.org.uk