Sir John Hurt

This portraitback to top

Pearson Wright approached Hurt while he was walking in Soho and invited him to sit for him while the actor was appearing on stage in Samuel Beckett's play, Krapp's Last Tape. Of the impromptu suggestion by the artist Hurt has commented 'somehow he just seemed right'. The portrait was made during several sittings in John Hurt's rooms in Covent Garden; it was short listed in the Garrick/Milne Portrait Prize in 2000.

Events of 2000back to top

Current affairs

The world celebrates the start of a new millennium. Britain marks the occasion with a series of new buildings and landmarks including the Millennium Dome, the London Eye, the Millennium Bridge, and the Millennium Stadium. While the Dome was criticised by politicians and the public for wasting public funds, and the Bridge suffered initial stability problems, other projects have become major landscape and public attractions.

Art and science

Tate Modern opens as a national gallery of international modern art under the directorship of Nicholas Serota. The gallery, housed in the former Bankside Power Station, took the novel step of arranging the collection by theme rather than chronologically. As well as the collection galleries, Tate Modern has two large temporary exhibition spaces, and commissions installation projects for the enormous Turbine Hall.

International

British troops are deployed to Sierra Leone to establish order and evacuate foreign nationals from the country torn apart by civil war. Following a ceasefire President Kabbah declared the civil war officially over in 2002.
George W. Bush becomes President of the United States after a close election where he lost the popular vote, but won the electoral vote thanks to a controversial Supreme Court decision on Florida.

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