Address: St James's Palace, St. James's, London SW1A 1BQ
When Frances Sally Day portrayed Queen Victoria and her family at the Royal residence on the Isle of Wight, a woman photographer was a rather rare phenomenon. It was 1859 and the English lords were busily planning charity evenings, but the most powerful head of state in the world was a woman and she chose to entrust her public image to a woman’s point of view. Despite the costs and technical difficulty of an art in its infancy, Day had a studio in Piccadilly, exhibited at the Royal Academy and competed successfully in prestigious national contests. Today, her photos are in good company in the Royal Collection, where it is possible to retrace the history of photography from the female point of view from the 1800s to today. Pioneering experiments, crucial technical innovations and revolutions like that of colour film are all touched upon in this thrilling voyage. Queen Alexandra (1844 - 1925) practiced photography, thanks to the new Kodak cameras that made the art much simpler and manageable. The modernist portraits of Dorothy Wilding, the delicate platinum prints of Alice Hughes, the socially relevant photos of Lee Miller and Toni Frissel are just some examples of the variety of styles and approaches. Besides being a means of artistic expression, photography offered women independence - “A life worth living, without monotony,” in “constant and pleasurable contact with humanity,” wrote photographer Olive Edis, before become an official reporter covering World War One.
Darren Almond uses sculpture, film and photography to produce works that harness the symbolic and emotional potential of objects, places and situations, producing works that have universal and personal resonances. Today he works on the "sense of time".
The modernist movement in Ukraine unfolded against a backdrop of collapsing empires, the First World War, the fight for independence, and the eventual establishment of Soviet Union.
Five decades of iconic Country music photography from photographer Alan Messer as he presents his historic collection that captures the hearts of Nashville legends.
Twenty years after the extraordinary success of the show Jailhouse Rock, West End's star Mario Kombou and musical director David Mackay join forces for the new musical The Elvis Years, a show that spans the entire creative life of the King of Rock.