Beatles to Bowie – The 60s Exposed – Exhibition

National Portrait Gallery to Explore 1960s Pop Icons and Culture

Sep 9, 2009

A photographic show will ask how 60s pop icons like The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Who, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix and others helped create "Swinging London".

Mention The Beatles, The Rolling Stones or Jimi Hendrix and fans of sixties music will sit up and listen. A forthcoming exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, entitled Beatles to Bowie – the 60s Exposed, will explore the music and pop icons of the 1960s, and is bound to attract plenty of visitors.

The photographic show will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the 1960s, a period in history or more specifically, pop history, when London became the pop culture capital of the world.

The show will include many previously unseen photos of popular groups including The Beatles, The Who, The Animals, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, Cliff Richard and the Shadows, Gerry and the Pacemakers, The John Barry Seven, Pink Floyd, The Dave Clark Five and more.

The show will also feature photographs of Adam Faith, Billy Fury, David Bowie, Marianne Faithfull, Petula Clark, Cilla Black, Lulu, Sandie Shaw, Marc Bolan and other soloists.

The exhibition will showcase the work of leading photographers who helped create and reinforce the evolving images of pop idols. The photographers include Fiona Adams, Robert Whitaker, David Wedgbury, David Bailie, Tony Frank, Colin Jones, Cecil Beaton, Norman Parkinson and many others. Robert Whitaker's work recently featured in the Beatles on Film exhibition at the Movieum of London. High spots of this part of the exhibition will include the following images:

The exhibition will be divided into ten sections, one for each year of the decade. Early decades will feature groups such as Gerry and The Pacemakers and the John Barry Seven, whose signature tune became the theme to the television programme "Juke Box Jury", a programme that could make or break a fragile career in the music industry.

There will also be ten display cases featuring 150 items of pop ephemera such as books, sheet music and record sleeves. Highlights will include:

The exhibition will also explore the careers of a number of stars, including P. J. Proby, the Walker Brothers, and Jimi Hendrix, who came to England from the United States, in the hopes of sharing some of the adoration received by The Beatles and their contemporaries.

British Female Singers as Role Models

The role of British female singers didn't just stop with the pop record. Many became role models with England's teen and young adult population copying their every move and imitating every fashion statement. Cilla Black and Lulu were dressed by the designer Caroline Charles, while Sandie Shaw created her own fashion designs. The fashion model Twiggy will appear as an Adel Rootstein mannequin in the Pop Meets Fashion part of the show. Twiggy will also be the subject of a related display of portrait photographs: Twiggy: a Life in Photographs (Room 33A, 19th September 2009-24th March 2010).

Mankind's Achievements Reflected in Music

The exhibition will show visitors how our landmark achievements, such as man's first steps on the moon, were reflected in popular music. Joe Meek's "Telstar" opened the decade and was soon followed by David Bowie's first hit record "Space Oddity".

A fully illustrated publication will accompany the exhibition. The book, which is introduced by Jon Savage, a cultural history and pop culture expert, will feature more than 300 images chosen by the NPG's Curator of Photographs, Terence Pepper.

Beatles to Bowie – the 60s Exposed will be open from 15th October 2009-24th January 2010, after which it will tour to the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne (6th February-18th April 2010), and Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery (8th May-5th September 2010).

The copyright of the article Beatles to Bowie – The 60s Exposed – Exhibition in Traveling Art Exhibits is owned by Frances Spiegel. Permission to republish Beatles to Bowie – The 60s Exposed – Exhibition in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.