Sanyo XACTI E7 Kompaktkameran

XACTI E7 har en elegant och stilfull design (c:a 91 x 55 x 21 mm) och är den perfekte följeslagaren i alla sammanhang. Under den smala metallsilhuetten (bara 21 mm tunn) gömmer sig många tekniska funktioner som ger kompaktkameran ett kraftfullt framträdande.

När du en gång har hittat ett motiv ser den 3x optiska zoomfunktionen till att du får det nära dig. Den innovativa touchsensorn aktiverar autofokus med en kort beröring och minimerar utlösarfördröjningen till 0,05 s. Du kan ta raka fotosekvenser med den blixtsnabba seriefunktionen med 2,3 bilder per sekund. På 2,5“ LCD-bildskärmen kan du titta på dina bilder (med en upplösning på 7 megapixel) och de högvärdiga VGA-videoklippen med ljus.

Många inställningslägen tilltalar inte bara den ambitiösa hobbyfotografen. En speciell porträttfunktion som automatiskt fokuserar på ansikten och belyser dem optimalt – perfekta bilder av ansikten. Hudtonerna blir därmed mycket naturtrogna i bilden, och rödögonkorrigeringen ger dessutom strålande ögon. När du fotograferar rörliga föremål använder kameran en „dynamisk“ autofokusfunktion. När du aktiverar dessa funktioner följer autofokusfunktionen motivet automatiskt och förhindrar därmed att t.ex. idrottare ”sprintar ut ur bilden”.

Med USB-kabeln kan du överföra skärmbilder från din dator (operativsystem Windows XP) direkt till din XACTI E7. För att du lätt ska kunna identifiera dina bilder senare kan du lagra och skriva ut dem med datum.

Litiom-ion-batteriet räcker till c:a 260 bilder. Du behöver därför inte vara rädd att batteriet ska ta slut mitt i en fotosekvens och att du därmed ska missa ett motiv. Det interna minnet (23 MB) och lagringen på SDkortet betyder att du har tillräckligt utrymme för dina bilder.

Rek. pris: 279 euro -- I fackhandeln: från september 2006

Sanyo XACTI E7 Fotocamera Compatta

Con il suo design elegante e alla moda (circa 91 x 55 x 21 mm), la XACTI E7 è il compagno ideale per numerose occasioni. Dietro lo snello profilo in metallo (soli 21 mm di spessore) si celano numerose caratteristiche tecniche che garantiscono le potenti prestazioni della fotocamera compatta.

Una volta inquadrato il soggetto, lo zoom ottico 3x permette di avvicinarlo direttamente all'obiettivo. L'innovativa tecnologia Touch Sensor attiva l'autofocus al semplice tocco di un sensore, riducendo il ritardo allo scatto a soli 0,05 secondi. Grazie alla rapidissima funzione per lo scatto di immagini in serie, è possibile acquisire fotosequenze lineari a 2,3 immagini al secondo. Il monitor LCD da 2,5 pollici permette di visualizzare direttamente le fotografie (con risoluzione a 7 megapixel) e i video VGA con audio di ottima qualità.

Le numerose modalità di impostazione sapranno dare grandi soddisfazioni non soltanto ai fotografi amatoriali più ambiziosi. Una particolare funzione dedicata ai ritratti, ad esempio, permette di mettere a fuoco e illuminare automaticamente i volti per scattare primi piani perfetti. In tal modo le tonalità dell'incarnato appaiono particolarmente naturali in fotografia, mentre la correzione dell'effetto occhi rossi contribuisce a ottenere immagini eccellenti. I problemi della ripresa di soggetti in movimento vengono risolti da una funzione di autofocus "dinamica". Attivando tale caratteristica, l'autofocus segue automaticamente il soggetto, evitando così, ad esempio, che gli atleti "scattino fuori dall'immagine".

Tramite il cavo USB è possibile trasferire direttamente gli screenshot da un computer (sistema operativo Windows XP) alla XACTI E7. Per poter organizzare le singole immagini in un secondo momento, è possibile salvare e stampare le foto con indicazione della data.

Per non perdere neppure un soggetto, la batteria agli ioni di litio fornisce alimentazione sufficiente per circa 260 immagini a ogni carica. Infine, la memoria interna da 23 MB e la scheda SD garantiscono la disponibilità di spazio sufficiente.

Sanyo XACTI E7 Kameran

Elegantin ja tyylikkään muotoilunsa ansiosta (mitat noin 91 x 55 x 21 mm) XACTI E7 sopii ihanteellisesti moneen tilanteeseen. Hoikka metallirunko (paksuus vain 21 mm) kätkee sisälleen useita teknisiä ominaisuuksia, jotka tekevät kompaktikamerasta oikean tehopakkauksen.

Kuvauskohteen valitsemisen jälkeen kolminkertainen optinen zoom tuo sen käden ulottuville. Innovatiivinen Touch Sensor käynnistää automaattisen tarkennuksen yhdellä kosketuksella ja lyhentää laukaisuviipeen jopa 0,05 sekuntiin. Salamannopealla sarjakuvaustoiminnolla voidaan ottaa peräkkäisiä kuvia jopa 2,3 kappaletta sekunnissa. 2,5 tuuman nestekidenäytöllä voidaan välittömästi katsoa valokuvia (seitsemän megapikselin resoluutiolla) ja laadukkaita VGA-videoita äänen kanssa.

Kameran monipuoliset asetukset saavat muutkin kuin vaativat harrastajat innostumaan. Esimerkiksi erityinen muotokuvatoiminto tarkentaa kuvattavan kasvoihin ja valaisee ne parhaalla mahdollisella tavalla automaattisesti, mikä takaa kasvokuvien täydellisen onnistumisen. Näin ihonsävyt toistuvat valokuvissa erityisen luonnollisina. Sen lisäksi punasilmäisyyden poistotoiminto kirkastaa katseen kuin katseen.

Liikkuvien kohteiden kuvaamista helpottaa "dynaaminen" automaattitarkennustoiminto. Kyseisen toiminnon avulla kamera pitää kuvauskohteen automaattisesti tarkennettuna, eikä esimerkiksi urheilija pääse "karkaamaan kuvasta".

Tietokoneelta (käyttöjärjestelmä Windows XP) voidaan siirtää kaapattu kuva USB-kaapelin avulla suoraan XACTI E7 -kameraan. Yksittäisten kuvien lajittelu onnistuu myöhemminkin, sillä valokuvat voidaan tallentaa ja tulostaa päivämäärän mukaan.

Pitkänkään kuvausjakson aikana ei tarvitse pelätä kuvauskohteiden poisjättämistä, sillä litium-ioniakussa riittää virtaa yhdellä latauksella noin 260 yksittäiselle kuvalle. Sisäinen muisti (23 Mt) ja SD-muistikortti tarjoavat riittävästi tallennustilaa.

Sanyo Xacti E7 Digital Camera

With an elegant and stylish design (approx. 91 x 55 x 21 mm), the XACTI E7 is the perfect companion for all sorts of occasions. The camera’s ultra-slim metal profile (21 mm) hides a large number of technical features that guarantee powerful performance from a compact camera.

Once a subject has been found, the 3x optical zoom brings it in up close. The innovative Touch Sensor activates the autofocus with just a light touch and reduces shutter delay to just 0.05 seconds. Continuous photo sequences are easily captured with the lightning-fast sequential shot function at 2.3 frames per second. Captured photos (with a resolution of 7 Megapixels) and high-quality VGA videos with audio can be viewed directly on the 2.5” LCD monitor.

Serious hobby as well as beginning photographers will welcome the wide variety of program modes. For example, the special portrait mode automatically focuses on faces and optimally illuminates them for perfect portraits every time. This mode ensures that skin tones always look natural and the red-eye correction guarantees sparkling eyes. A "dynamic" autofocus feature counters the difficulties of photographing moving objects. When this feature is activated, the autofocus system automatically tracks the subject and prevents sport players from “running out of the image”, for example.

Screenshots can be transferred directly to the XACTI E7 when the camera is connected to your computer (Windows XP) with the USB cable. You can even save and print individual photos with the capture date so that you can arrange them later.

The lithium-ion battery delivers enough power for up to 260 pictures on a single charge so that you won’t have to stop photographing even on long photo tours. The internal memory (23 MB) and removable SD cards mean you will always have sufficient storage for your data.

SRP: 279 Euros -- Availability: September 2006

Sanyo XACTI E7 overbeviser ikke kun med et elegante udseende

Med det elegante og stilfulde design (ca. 91 x 55 x 21 mm) er XACTI E7 den perfekte ledsager til mange anledninger. Under den slanke metalsilhuet (kun 21 mm flad) gemmer der sig utallige tekniske funktioner, som sørger for kameraets effektivitet. Når et motiv først er registreret, bringes det helt tæt til linsen af den 3x optiske zoom. Blot ved at berøre den innovative touch-sensor aktiveres autofokus og udløserforsinkelsen minimeres til 0,05 sekunder. Med den lynhurtige seriebilledfunktion kan der tages retliniede fotosekvenser med 2,3 billeder per sekund. På 2,5 tommer LCD-skærmen kan billederne (med en opløsning på 7 mio. pixel) og VGA-videoer af højeste kvalitet ses og høres direkte. Utallige indstillinger får ikke kun ambitiøse hobbyfotografers hjerter til at banke hurtigere. En speciel portrætfunktion, som automatisk fokuserer ansigter og belyser dem optimalt, sørger for at portrætbilleder lykkedes perfekt. Hudfarver virker særlig naturlige på billedet og funktionen til afhjælpning af røde øjne sørger desuden for et strålende blik. Optagelsesproblemer med genstande, som bevæger sig, undgås med en ”dynamisk” autofokusfunktion. Når denne funktion aktiveres, følger autofokussen automatisk motivet og forhindrer således ved f.eks. sportsoptagelser at motivet bevæger sig uden for billedet. Med et USB-kabel er det muligt at overføre screenshots fra computeren (styresystem Windows XP) direkte til XACTI E7. For på et senere tidspunkt at kunne indordne enkelte billeder kan billederne gemmes og udskrives med dato. Således at du selv under lange fotooptagelser ikke mister nogen motiver, giver det genopladelige lithium-ion batteri per opladning strøm til ca. 260 enkeltbilleder. Den interne hukommelse (23 MB) samt lagringen på SD-kortet giver tilstrækkelig plads til data. Litiom-ion-batteriet räcker till c:a 260 bilder. Du behöver därför inte vara rädd att batteriet ska ta slut mitt i en fotosekvens och att du därmed ska missa ett motiv. Det interna minnet (23 MB) och lagringen på SDkortet betyder att du har tillräckligt utrymme för dina bilder.

Vejledende pris: Euro 279,- Levering: fra september 2006

David Bomberg, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal

David Bomberg

Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal 

17 July - 28 October 2006

Abbot Hall Art Gallery presents an exhibition of one of the most important and influential British painters of the twentieth century, DAVID BOMBERG (1890-1957).

David Bomberg is now recognised as a significant painter of the modern movement in British art, and yet at the time of his death in 1957 his work was almost universally ignored and neglected by critics and collectors alike. 

After a precocious period at the Slade School of Art from 1911-13, at the age of twenty three David Bomberg exploded onto the London art scene with his own daring, dynamic and innovative brand of ‘Vorticist’ painting, inspired by the machine-age and the modern industrial city. David Bomberg developed a unique visual language in which the human figure was reduced to angular, geometric shapes, taking the faceted forms of Cubist painting to new extremes, in order to express the dynamism of modern urban life.

However, David Bomberg’s enthusiasm for the revitalising energy of the modern industrial world was shattered by the horrors of the First World War when, in 1916, he was called to active service in France and experienced at first hand the devastation wrought by the new weapons of the machine-age. On his return to England he abandoned his radical early style, returning to more traditional figurative concerns and working from nature and ‘the life’. Moving away from the schematised abstraction of his pre-war work, he sought a more human approach and, in the years that followed his demobilisation in 1919, he strove to find a new visual language which satisfied his desire for greater naturalism, without sacrificing the qualities of simplicity and strong design so clearly demonstrated in his early work.

His turning point came in 1923 when he travelled to Palestine with his wife Alice, settling in Jerusalem where they lived until 1927. Embarking on a series of landscapes painted plein air, David Bomberg began to approach subjects with a precise and meticulous study of nature that had been engendered in him by his Slade training. Landscape painting would dominate David Bomberg’s output for the remainder of his career, and these works reveal his intense observation of nature as well as his passionate and brilliant handling of paint.

The exhibition at Abbot Hall focuses on the extraordinary variety, innovation and ability of David Bomberg as a painter and draughtsman, showing a selection of his finest works from throughout his career. Little of his work has been seen in public galleries as many of his finest paintings are in private hands, however, we will be borrowing ten key works from Tate, and many of the paintings are 3on loan from individuals, in addition to other major public collections. 

A fully illustrated exhibition catalogue is available.

HABBOT HALL ART GALLERY

Kendal, Cumbria LA9 5AL

www.abothhall.org.uk

Bodhisattva monumental au Musée Guimet

Nouvelle acquisition et exposition au musée Guimet

Une saison, une oeuvre

Bodhisattva monumental

Musée Guimet, Paris

21 septembre - 21 décembre 2006

 

Le musée national des arts asiatiques Guimet propose au public de découvrir une statue exceptionnelle d’un bodhisattva, acquisition venant rejoindre les collections chinoises. Sa présentation au public, à partir de la fin septembre 2006, s’inscrit dans le cadre de la manifestation « Une saison, une oeuvre. »

Cette pièce monumentale est issue de la prestigieuse collection de l’expert japonais M. Yamanaka, à l’origine de la présence de nombreux chefs d’oeuvre de la statuaire chinoise dans les plus grands musées du monde. Cette acquisition est un enrichissement exceptionnel pour les collections du musée Guimet, plaçant ainsi l’institution française, pour ses collections chinoises, aux côtés du Metropolitan Museum of Arts de New-York, du Museum of Arts de Boston et du British Museum de Londres. L’événement est historique dans la mesure où aucune oeuvre de cette taille n’était apparue sur le marché depuis 1939.

Cette statue cultuelle en grès rougeâtre, haute de deux mètres quarante, représente un bodhisattva, « être d’éveil ». Située sur le palier du premier étage du musée, dressée dans une niche spécialement aménagée pour l’accueillir, elle marque l’accès aux salles consacrées à la civilisation chinoise.

Cette oeuvre, commanditée par un souverain ou un éminent personnage, est une statue-colonne, taillée dans le bloc rocheux originel. Fidèle à une iconographie fixée en Inde, l’être d’éveil porte le costume et les attributs princiers (diadème orné, lourds bijoux). Le brillant costume est dérivé des sources indiennes par une interprétation chinoise. Le trait sinisé se remarque dans le fait que le torse, contrairement à la nudité indienne, est couvert d’une fine étoffe. La gestuelle est conforme au canon répandu dans tout le monde bouddhique. La main gauche, dans laquelle apparaît le bouton de lotus, figure le geste du « Don ». La droite, relevée, brisée au poignet, pourrait esquisser le geste de « l’Absence de crainte » ou bien, plus probablement, être retournée comme si elle venait à toucher l’écharpe, douceur d’un geste qui manifeste le don de soi.

Le style, ainsi que la nature du grès laissent à penser que cette statue provient des grands ateliers impériaux du Nord-est (région de Taiyuan), dans la province du Shanxi, alors sous le règne de la dynastie sino-barbare des Qi septentrionaux (550-577). On retrouve également l’influence de leurs prédécesseurs, les Wei occidentaux.

Le bodhisattva se trouvait sans doute parmi un groupe statuaire dressé sur l’autel principal d’un temple, réuni autour du Bouddha. Ces figures sont principalement honorées dans le bouddhisme du Grand Véhicule (Mahâyâna). Répondant à l’attente des croyants qui cherchent à se délivrer de leur douleur, le bodhisattva intervient dans la vie des hommes en qualité de guide secourable. Il incarne le voeu d’obtenir l’état de bouddha, « éveillé parfait ».

 

Récapitulatif des caractéristiques du bodhisattva

Grès rougeâtre (avec trace de polychromie et de dorure)
Chine septentrionale vraisemblablement province du Shanxi central, région de Taiyuan
Dynastie des Qi du Nord (550-577)
Dimensions : Hauteur 240 cm
Poids : 1 tonne 5
Situation : premier étage, rotonde du musée Guimet
Date d’entrée dans les collections : 4 avril 2006

 

Cette acquisition a été rendue possible grâce au mécénat d'AREVA qui est partenaire du musée Guimet depuis 2001. Le groupe contribue régulièrement à l’enrichissement des collections du musée par l’acquisition d’oeuvres.

 

MUSEE GUIMET
Musée national des Arts Asiatiques

Joëlle Deroy, Ezair Gallery, Southampton

Joëlle Deroy: By the Sea
Ezair Gallery, Southampton
July 8 - 31, 2006

Ezaïr Gallery presents the exhibition of Joëlle Deroy: “By the Sea”. The artist exhibits both ceramics works -realized in Vallauris, heart of the ceramic art in France, with the renown master ceramist Francis Milici who worked, among others, with Picasso, Cocteau and Brazilier- and her latest works in painting and mixed media.

Joëlle Deroy’s latest works have been inspired by Chinese calligraphy and by a research on flows and tensions.

According to Joëlle Deroy “the art object is inducing a game, a distance to be created between the viewer and the art work, which allows the viewer to better grasp his own reality or essence. This is why I am very found of creating a piece for someone: out of empathy, it allows me to create the art piece that I feel is needed by that particular person, to balance or help blossom his or her self. It goes beyond the recognition of others particular tastes and is, in my view, not dissimilar to the actor empathy for his or her character.”

EZAIR GALLERY
136 Main Street - Old Post House, Southampton NY 11968
www.ezairgallery.com

Exposition Laurent Pariente, Musée Bourdelle, Paris

Laurent Pariente 

Musée Bourdelle, Paris 

7 juillet - 26 novembre 2006 

Laurent Pariente développe depuis la fin des années 1980 une œuvre qui convoque à la fois la peinture, la sculpture et l’architecture, de ses premières plaques de zinc gravées qui ont inauguré la relation de l’artiste au mur, jusqu’aux structures recouvertes de craie qu’il élabore aujourd’hui. Ses constructions éphémères sont bâties à la mesure du lieu qui les accueille et ne peuvent s’appréhender dans leur globalité. Faites de parois hautes, ouvertes de passages, ces structures prolifèrent dans l’espace, le cloisonnent et sollicitent à travers leur dispositif une prise de conscience du lieu.

A l’occasion de sa première exposition dans un musée parisien, Laurent Pariente présente un ensemble d’œuvres inédites: une construction, un choix de plaques de métal gravées, des autoportraits gravés sur aluminium ou exécutés sur papier à la mine de plomb.

La construction créée pour le musée occupe les quatre salles en enfilade des anciens ateliers situés au cœur des bâtiments. A partir d’un module géométrique simple qu’elle reproduit, juxtapose jusqu’aux limites du lieu qui la circonscrit, cette construction s’ordonne en un réseau oblique de cellules, de passages, de couloirs où alternent plafonds et puits de jour. Des portraits, bustes et des masques de Bourdelle viennent ponctuer un itinéraire à inventer. Le visiteur désorienté s’expose au choix réitéré des seuils à franchir, s’immerge dans la blancheur qu’anime la lumière jouant sur le velouté des parois de craie.

Un ensemble de plaques de métal (aluminium, laiton, cuivre) de format imposant, gravées à la pointe sèche est présenté dans les salles jouxtant le hall des plâtres. Inscrites dans la continuité des séries précédentes ces plaques s’en distinguent par leurs vernis de diverses couleurs. Lieu premier de surgissement de la lumière, elles en demeurent le terrain d’expérimentation.

De conception récente, les Autoportraits sur aluminium verni associent la technique utilisée pour les plaques de métal au tracé des Autoportraits exécutés à la mine de plomb. Dans ces Autoportraits - présents dans l’œuvre de Pariente depuis ses débuts - des entrelacs montrent ou laissent deviner en filigrane la trace du visage.

Commissaire de l'exposition : Juliette Laffon

Musée Bourdelle

16, rue Antoine Bourdelle - 75015 Paris

www.paris.fr

Fair Play 2006 Video Festival in Berlin

 

Fair Play 2006 Video Festival

Play gallery for still and motion pictures, Berlin

July 13-17, 2006

 

Play gallery for still and motion pictures in Berlin presents this month Fair Play 2006 Video Festival. After the success of the last years, Fair Play Video Festival has come to its 3rd edition. Since 2003 Play gallery has been organizing this event as a presentation platform for young artists and a meeting point for professionals in of film and video production.

Aim of the festival is presenting works of young and emerging artists who express their artistic concepts through the film language, giving an account of the current film and video production and stimulating the development of new visual languages and narratives.

In order to collect the widest possible range of international artists, curators from all over the world have been invited to propose works, which, in their opinion, give a contribution to the development of the contemporary film and video production.

 

The Proposal Committee of this edition is composed by:

Ahu Antmen (TR) art critic and freelance curator in Istanbul (TR)
Luca Beatrice (IT) art critic and curator, professor at Brera Art Academy, Milan (IT)
Yann Beauvais (FR) filmmaker, curator and founder of Light Cone, Paris (FR)
Madeleine Bernstorff (DE) member of the selection committee at Film Festival Oberhausen '06 (DE)
Ricardo Mbarak (LB) new media artist and University Professor in Beirut (LB)
Mihnea Mircan (RO) curator among other at MNAC Bucharest (RO) and Palais De Tokyo Paris (FR)
Thomas Munz (DE) film & video curator and chief editor at transmediale, Berlin (DE)
Nestor Olhagaray (CL) director of Bienal de Video y Nuevos Medios in Santiago / Chile (CL)
Barbara Perea (MX) curator at MUCA Roma, Mexico City (MX)
Mark Webber (UK) independent curator and programme advisor at London Film Festival (UK)

The submitted works have been then selected by an internal committee within Play gallery for still and motion pictures.

 

The Jury is composed by professionals from various fields: curators, institution directors, professors and filmmakers. The Jury meets in July 13-15, for a screening week-end with discussion panels, which is partially open to the public. It is the right of the jury to decide whether the discussions will be public or not.

Thursday, July 13 - Introduction of the jurors / short screening
Friday, July 14 - Screening
Saturday, July 15 - Screening and panel discussion

Jury members of Fair Play 2006

Nathalie Angles (US) curator at Location One New York (US)
Marc Glöde (DE) curator, assistant professor and research fellow in Film Studies at FU Berlin (DE)
Birgit Kohler (DE) film expert, programme curator, Freunde der deutschen Kinemathek Berlin (DE)
Harm Lux (NL) independent curator in Berlin (DE)
Chus Martínez (ES) director at Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main (DE)
Ivica Pinjuh (BA) film critic and professor assistant at Sarajevo University (BA)
Sven Wörner (DE) founder member of Cinémathèque Leipzig (DE)
Peter Zorn (DE) curator, filmmaker, new media expert founder member of Werkleitz Biennale (DE)

The Jurors have the task of conferring a 1st and a 2nd prize in money (4000 and 2000 euros) as a contribution to the production of a work which will be shown in the Play gallery in 2007 and a 3rd prize, which consist in an exhibition at the gallery. Winners of the past editions were Akram Zaatari (2005) and Johannes Maier (2003).

 

Update...

... and the WINNERS are...

1st Prize: Procesul / The trial, 2004-2005, 37 min. by Mona Vatamanu and Florin Tudor (RO/CH)

2nd Prize: Indocumentado / Undocumented, 2005, 10 min. by Edgar Endress (CL)

3rd Prize: Granny, 2005, 9 min. by Ozlem Sulak (TR)

 

Play gallery for still and motion pictures
Hannoversche Strasse 1
10115 Berlin

The gallery is open Wed - Sat, 2 - 7pm

Angus McBean at National Portrait Gallery, London

Angus McBean: Portraits
National Portrait Gallery, London
5 July - 22 October 2006

Angus McBean: Portraits is the first museum retrospective devoted to Angus McBean (1904-90), one of the most significant British photographers of the twentieth century. It brings together over 100 photographs in black and white and colour, including a large number of vintage prints from museum collections and important loans from private collections. The exhibition offers an unprecedented opportunity to see the astonishing range of McBean's work. From the striking surrealist portraits of the 1930s to his period as indisputably the most important photographer of theatre and dance personalities of the 1940s and 1950s. The exhibition also showcases his cult re-emergence as a chronicler of pop music and includes his famous Beatles covers.

Highlights of the exhibition include the iconic 1951 photograph of the then unknown Audrey Hepburn, her head and shoulders emerging from sand - and posed amidst classical pillars. The forty-year spread of the exhibition includes more recent photographs of Derek Jarman and Tilda Swinton, while other significant portraits include Marlene Dietrich, Mae West and Katharine Hepburn. The exhibition also features several defining portraits of Vivien Leigh, whom McBean photographed many times over the course of their thirty-year association.

On show for the first time is the complete series of his self-portrait Christmas cards which McBean produced between 1934 and 1985. These inventive and innovative portraits are displayed alongside theatrical props used in their composition, including a Mae West puppet, a marble 'Greek God' bust, bisque 'bathing beauties' and two 1930s papier mâché masks of Greta Garbo and Ivor Novello.

Born near Newport in South Wales in 1904, Angus McBean bought his first camera at the age of fifteen. He used his friends and family as models, and also began to make masks and theatrical props for local amateur dramatic productions. After the death of his father in 1924, McBean moved to London and found work in the antiques department of Liberty's on Regent Street, spending his spare time photographing his friends and making masks. After leaving Liberty's in 1931 he decided to try and live by his art, growing a distinctive beard that he claimed was symbolic of the fact that he no longer wished to be a wage earner. McBean was briefly apprenticed to society photographer Hugh Cecil, who taught him photographic techniques, and after a year he set up his own studio in Victoria.

McBean's big break came in 1936 when Ivor Novello asked him to create masks for Clemence Dane's adaptation of a Max Beerbohm short story, The Happy Hypocrite. Novello was delighted with the masks and immediately commissioned McBean to take portrait photographs for the production. In 1937 The Sketch commissioned him to photograph the actress Beatrix Lehmann playing Lavinia in Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra. The dramatic composition of this photograph was inspired by the surrealist art of the era, and working with the artist Roy Hobdell, McBean went on to produce a number of 'surrealist' portraits of leading actresses in a weekly series, which ran until the early months of the war. Among those on display are portraits of Flora Robson, René Ray and Peggy Ashcroft as Portia.

After the war, McBean set up a new studio in Endell Street, London and was commissioned to photograph the American actress Clare Luce in a new production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. He then produced a series of portraits that incorporated significant objects from the lives of his sitters into their photographs: Cecil Beaton is shown surrounded by pages from his scrapbooks, while Ivor Novello leans over bound editions of his musicals. Other portraits show 'Play Personalities' such as Noel Coward, Ralph Richardson and Hugh 'Binkie' Beaumont (Binkie Pulls the Strings). Also on display are portraits of ballet dancers Margot Fonteyn and Robert Helpmann.

In the 1950s and '60s McBean's career took a new direction as he began taking colour photographs for LP covers. The exhibition shows his photographs of Cliff Richard and the Shadows, Shirley Bassey and The Beverley Sisters and Spike Milligan's head encased in a glass jar for his album Milligan Preserved. McBean was responsible for the front cover of The Beatles album Please, Please Me, taking a spontaneous shot of the group leaning over the balcony at the EMI Offices in London. Six years later he was asked to recreate the 1963 photograph for the proposed Get Back album. It later appeared on the retrospective LP The Beatles 1967-1970, and these will be displayed alongside one another. Angus McBean retired in 1966 to focus on decorating and restoring his house, Flemings Hall in Suffolk, but he returned to photography in 1982 and the exhibition includes late work such as his portraits of Vivienne Westwood and Jean Paul Gaultier.

A lavishly illustrated catalogue accompanies this exhibition by curator Terence Pepper, and includes excerpts from McBean's unpublished autobiography, Look Back in Angus. Price £25 hardback. 280 x 230mm, 172 pages. 100 images

The exhibition will tour to Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield (2 December 2006-10 March 2007) and Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales (31 March-3 June 2007).

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
www.npg.org.uk