27 July 2023
For this month’s Spin event we will be heading to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery to discuss the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, with curator Louise Pearson.
Capturing and sharing emotional, dramatic, or everyday moments in life is the magic of the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. Featuring celebrated professionals and enthusiastic amateur photographers, the prize celebrates the very best in contemporary photography, drawing on over 4,000 entries from 62 countries.
The final selection showcases 51 portraits from 36 artists, which includes several famous faces, including footballer and activist Marcus Rashford and Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard. The winner of this year’s Prize is Clémentine Schneidermann for the series Laundry Day. The socially distanced portraits of the series were taken during times of quarantine, self-isolation, and national lockdowns. In the words of the artist, they ‘document micro events which deal with the passage of time through the small moments of our daily lives’
28 July 2016
For our July Spin event, we will be meeting at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery to discuss the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2015 with photographer Robin Gillanders.
The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize is the leading competition to celebrate and promote the very best in contemporary portrait photography from around the world. The selected images explore both traditional and contemporary approaches to the photographic portrait whilst capturing a range of characters, moods and locations. Some photographs present ordinary people in their everyday realities around the world, whilst other show us famous faces, from the actors Peter Capaldi and Benedict Cumberbatch to the artist Yayoi Kusama. The exhibition makes a strong case for the value of large-format portrait photography in the age of the ‘selfie’.
For our July Spin event, we will be meeting at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery to discuss the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize with photographer Robin Gillanders.
The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize is the leading competition to celebrate and promote the very best in contemporary portrait photography from around the world. The selected images explore both traditional and contemporary approaches to the photographic portrait whilst capturing a range of characters, moods and locations. Some photographs present ordinary people in their everyday realities around the world, whilst other show us famous faces, from the actors Peter Capaldi and Benedict Cumberbatch to the artist Yayoi Kusama. The exhibition makes a strong case for the value of large-format portrait photography in the age of the ‘selfie’.
29 July 2005 at 6pm
For our last members event before the August break, we return to the Gallery of Modern Art for a chance to view the spectacular Francis Bacon: Portraits and Heads exhibition which opened in June 2005.
Philip Long, Senior Curator at the Gallery of Modern Art will take us on a personal tour of the first museum exhibition to explore, in depth, Bacon’s vivid and striking portraits of friends, lovers and other artists. With over 50 works on loan from public and private collections from around the world, this is an exhibition not to be missed!
29 May 2003 at 6pm
For this month’s Spin event, we are going to look at the dynamic portraits exhibition by Mario Testino. Our invited guest will be Glyn Davis, Lecturer in Film and Media Studies at Edinburgh College of Art, who will reflect upon the works in this spectacular and fashionable show.
Some of the questions we will consider in the show are;
Portraits, are they art or not?
How do we go about evaluating portraits of people in the public eye?
What are the different visual dialogues that occur within the show?
Mario Testino is one of fashion’s most-sought-after and charismatic photographers, whose name is synonymous with images of glamour, style and joie de vivre. Based in London, Testino travels extensively for international fashion magazines, whilst his work has been exhibited widely in Europe and Japan. Mario Testino: Portraits brings together over 100 photographs, in which he has captured contemporary celebrities from the worlds of fashion, film and music. His subjects include Robbie Williams, Catherine Zeta Jones, Liz Hurley, Kate Moss, Gwyneth Paltrow and Madonna, as well as Diana, Princess of Wales, photographed shortly before her death in 1997. Much of the fascination of his work lies in today’s cult of celebrity, youth, and a particular ideal of beauty.
