Vanity Fair Photos

The exhibition of Vanity Fair photos at the National Portrait Gallery celebrates the glamour and history of one of the most famous magazines of the 20th century, and this February displays 150 classic images that featured in the journal.

Focusing on rare and vintage prints from the early days of the magazine, the Vanity Fair photos sit alongside portraits from the contemporary work, which spans from the early eighties to the present day. Mixing the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein and Jean Harlow along with the more modern sibjects of Arthur Miller and Madonna, the collection makes for a stunning exhibition of works, taken by some of the world's best photographers.

Man Ray, Cecil Beaton and Baron De Meyer are just some of the artists responsible for the classic images in the Vanity Fair photos exhibition, and you can see the work of Annie Leibovitz, Helmut Newton and Mario Testino also on display. Depicting a wide range of subjects, the exhibition of portraits shows the variety of people profiled in the magazine and the range of photographers used.

H.G. Wells, James Joyce, Rebecca West and George Bernard Shaw rub photographic shoulders with Claude Monet, Augustus Jon and various leaders of the avant garde art movement; actors, musicians and athletes were also profiled in Vanity Fair, combining the publics love of celebrity with a mix of artistic seriousness. In the Vanity Fair photos, you can see all the classic stars as they were seen by the public in their hey day.

Vanity Fair suspended its publication in 1936 just before the war and began again in the 1980s, where it continued to record the lives of modern men and women of culture, stature and talent. The iconic cover portraits continued to make news, with the likes of the heavily pregnant Demi Moore, a picture of the Regans dancing together, and more recently both Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson who were photographed naked.

Setting Virgina Woolf and Josephine Baker alongside these vibrant 21st century images, the Vanity Fair photos exhibition gives an exciting and intriguing history of the magazine and the notion of celebrity as it has changed over the years, since its inception to its modern day counterpart. On show at the National Portrait Gallery until the 26th May, the Vanity Fair Portraits is a wonderful celebration of both the artists behind the shots and the people in the photos who have influenced 20th and 21st century culture and politics.

Due to the amazing popularity of the exhibition, the National Portrait Gallery has extended its opening hours on four dates to allow more people to see the portraits before the show closes. Vanity Fair Photos will now be open until 11pm on Thursday 15th and Friday 16th, and Thursday 22nd and Friday 23rd May.

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