Portraits in disguise - NPG x26033
Dorothy Etta Warrender, Lady Bruntisfield (née Rawson) as Ceres
by Madame Yevonde
1935
NPG x26033
A charity party on the theme of the Olympians held at Claridges in March 1935, seems to have given Madame Yevonde the idea of making a series of portraits of society beauties dressed as the goddesses and nymphs of Greek and Roman mythology. Lady Warrender, is photographed in the actual costume, designed by Oliver Messel, that she wore to the party. Yevonde has given her a cornucopia of produce and bathed the whole composition in golden light to intensify the sunny, bountiful feeling of the work. Yevonde's photography was influenced by Surrealism, in particular by Dali and Man Ray, but also by the pioneer British art photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron, who made an interesting series of costume portraits in the 1870s .
The Goddess series represents the culmination of both Yevonde's portrait and imaginative work, and her mastery of the technical and artistic possibilities of the Vivex colour printing process
Mrs Peter Quennell
by Paul Tanqueray
NPG x150254 (Detail)
A velvet evening suit with gathered sleeves of a complex design it is a sophisticated outfit of the mid 1930s requiring a good figure to carry it off.
