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Angus McBean: Portraits
National Portrait Gallery until 22nd October
Book of the same title published by National Portrait Gallery
On sale at the exhibition for £20 or £25 elsewhere
172 pages
Dateline: 4th September, 2006
There is a real treat in store for theatre lovers who find themselves
in the National Portrait Gallery at the moment, perhaps on the way to
see Rock 'n' Roll or
Avenue Q just
along St Martin's Lane.
The retrospective exhibition of Angus McBean's photographs covers a
50 year period from just before the Second World War. The Welsh-born
photographer made his reputation as a theatre specialist, although the
exhibition is rather wider, including entertainers of every type, in
addition to a series of Christmas cards featuring the photographer himself.
Those cards, like many of his portraits of the great stars of his day,
contain a considerable surreal element so that on occasion, one would
believe that it was Salvador Dali rather than McBean who had created
the pictures.
The exhibition welcomes you rather strangely with a Mae West puppet
that makes a later appearance in a photograph.
The photographs soon reach Vivien Leigh, a favourite of the photographer
who also graces the front cover of the book.
The surreal pictures are quite startling and remarkable, with Peggy
Ashcroft as Portia in front of a backdrop that looks like the point
where a town peters out into the Mexican desert while Alfred Drayton
and Robertson Hare are apparently no more than a pair of ostrich eggs.
While there are many photos of beautiful people such as Miss Leigh
with her husband, Lord Olivier, ineffably sad Marlene Dietrich and it
has to be said Quentin Crisp. Perhaps the wittiest and most entertaining
works of all are a group collectively entitled Play Personalities.
These include Peter Brook emerging from newspaper headlines about his
Romeo and Juliet, critic James Agate relaxing in front of posters,
Robert Helpmann as Hamlet in front of a giant script, McBean's fellow
Welshmen Ivor Novello and Emlyn Williams surrounded by books and Ralph
Richardson looking pensive on a tiny stage. Best of all though for both
design and allegorical meaning, we see impresario Binky Beaumont pulling
the strings of the puppet-sized Angela Baddeley and Emlyn Williams.
The glorious portraits just roll on and on, with many actors seen in
character such as Noel Coward in Present Laughter, Katharine
Hepburn in The Millionairess and unforgettably, and perhaps inevitably,
a devastated Vivien Leigh as Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named
Desire.
The performing arts are also represented with a lovely portrait of
Margot Fonteyn framed by a ballerina's legs, Maria Callas looking mystical
and the Beatles in a number of photos that eventually made it onto the
covers of albums.
While art was generally the reason for McBean to take photos, sometimes
commercialism reared its ugly head: for example, some beautiful photos
of the young Audrey Hepburn were taken to sell calamine lotion.
The final series of photos were taken for Christmas cards, all of which
featured the photographer himself, often in strange and witty poses,
which must have given both the man taking them and their recipients
a great deal of pleasure and amusement.
Overall, this exhibition cannot be recommended too highly to those
who are able to make it to London. For others, the accompanying book
is sumptuously produced and would make a wonderful birthday or Christmas
present that will be greatly appreciated by anybody in love with the
performing arts or high quality portrait photography.
Philip Fisher
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