Hoppé Portraits- Society, Studio & Street- National Portrait Gallery

An exhibition to look forward this month is Hoppé Portraits- Society, Studio & Street, at the National Portrait Gallery from 17th February to 30th May. Hoppé was one of the most influential photographers of his time, during the 1920s and 1930s, and was well renowned for his brilliant portrayal of personality through his black and white photos, revealing something truly intimate about the sitter. I particuarly like the off-guard portraits of the British public, and how they reveal segments of people’s lives around the UK at the beginning of the 20th Century.

The exhibition is described as; “Featuring 150 works, The exhibition includes Hoppé’s strikingly modernist portraits of society figures and important personalities from the worlds of literature, politics and the arts, including George Bernard Shaw, Margot Fonteyn, Albert Einstein, Vita Sackville-West and members of the royal family. These studio portraits will be shown alongside his fascinating photojournalist studies of everyday British people ranging from street musicians and circus performers to bus drivers and postmen, which capture the realities of day-to-day life between the wars”. See: 

‘Like a well-cut gem London has a thousand facets and in all of them is a picture’  E.O. Hoppé, The Image of London