Curators' Choice: Photographs from the Terence Pepper Gift

Interesting exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of 19th and 20th century photographs donated to the museum by their Senior Special Adviser on Photographs, Terence Pepper who worked at the gallery from 1978-2013. The works were chosen by staff who had worked with him and they wrote the comments.

The display talked about the style and history of photographic portraits from carte de visite to press photographs. Stand out pictures included one of Lewis Waller, a Victorian English cult actor, who still looked very dashing. I also loved one of Edward VII and his grandchildren.

Pepper had championed the collection of press prints as a record of the key moments of “contextual live of the sitter”. In this genre there was a lovely picture of Lucien Freud and Lady Caroline Blackwood on their wedding day.

There was also a nice section on the defining exhibitions which Pepper had curated such as the Angus McBean from 2006 and the May Ray show of 2013.

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