Alexander Fleming
7 of 24 portraits of Sir Alexander Fleming
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Alexander Fleming
by Walter Stoneman
bromide print, July 1943
5 in. x 3 5/8 in. (128 mm x 91 mm) image size
Commissioned, 1943
Photographs Collection
NPG x32769
Sitterback to top
- Sir Alexander Fleming (1881-1955), Bacteriologist and discoverer of penicillin. Sitter in 24 portraits.
Artistback to top
- Walter Stoneman (1876-1958), Photographer. Artist or producer associated with 18527 portraits, Sitter in 8 portraits.
Linked publicationsback to top
- Rogers, Malcolm, Camera Portraits, 1989 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 20 October 1989 - 21 January 1990), p. 14
Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top
- Commissioning Photographs 1917-1970 (23 January 2006 - 4 June 2006)
Events of 1943back to top
Current affairs
The War effort continues with women recruited to the Home Guard and Ernie Bevin introducing conscription of miners as coal output continues to flag.There is panic when a new anti aircraft weapon is heard for the first time in London and 173 people die in the crush to enter an air-raid shelter at Bethnal Green tube station.
Art and science
Barnes Wallis's bouncing bomb is used during Operation Chastise - the Dam busters Raid - to destroy three dams in the Ruhr area of Germany. The raid was considered a success, knocking out hydroelectric power, cutting off the water supply to industry and causing devastation through flooding. The operation also, however, cost the allies many lives, and the bouncing bomb was not used again.International
The invasion of Sicily is successful thanks to Operation Mincemeat, in which false documents were planted on the body of a dead airman to mislead Germany into thinking that the Allied target was Sardinia. The invasion led to the fall of Mussolini and Italy joining the Allies.42,000 German civilians are killed in a firestorm in Hamburg caused by the Allied bombing in Operation Gomorrah.
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