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Oliver Messel

1 of 27 portraits of Oliver Messel

© estate of Angus McBean / National Portrait Gallery, London

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Oliver Messel

by Angus McBean
vintage bromide print, published in The Sketch 15 March 1950
19 7/8 in. x 14 1/2 in. (504 mm x 368 mm)
Purchased, 2008
Primary Collection
NPG P1304

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Angus McBean (1904-1990), Photographer. Artist or producer associated with 283 portraits, Sitter in 79 portraits.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Pepper, Terence, Angus McBean Portraits, 2006 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 5 July to 22 October 2006), p. 66 Read entry

    Artist and stage designer Oliver Messel was the grandson of the Victorian artist, amateur photographer and Punch cartoonist Edward Linley Sambourne. Messel studied under Henry Tonks at the Slade School of Fine Art, London, and became celebrated for the masks he produced out of wax and papier mâché for student parties. This led to an exhibition at Claridges in 1925 and subsequent recruitment by C. B. Cochran to design for his revues, contributing costumes, scenery, settings and masks for Noel Coward's song 'Dance, Dance, Little Lady' in This Year of Grace (1928). Two productions in 1932, both directed by Max Reinhardt - Helen!> at the Adelphi and The Miracle at the Lyric - were a high point in Messel's career as a stage designer. After the war he continued to work for the cinema and stage. Here he is shown with a large birdcage which, according to the Sketch caption writer, added 'ascetic beauty to his winter garden set' for Christopher Fry's production of Jean Anouilh's Ring Around the Moon.

Events of 1950back to top

Current affairs

Princess Anne is born at Clarence house, the only daughter of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip.

Art and science

C.S. Lewis publishes The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the first book in the Chronicles of Narnia series. Lewis was an Oxford Don, specialising in Medieval Literature and its use of allegory. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is often seen as an allegory of the Christian struggle between good and evil.

International

Following the Soviet and American withdrawal from the occupation of North and South Korea respectively, the Korean War breaks out as each side seeks to unify Korea under its own political system. While the U.S.A., U.K and other UN nations came to the defence of South Korea, North Korea had support from the Soviet Union and China. The war continued until 1953.

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