PAST EXHIBITION ARCHIVE

We Are The People: Postcards
from the Collection of Tom Phillips

2 March - 20 June 2004
Porter Gallery
Admission Free

All postcards from the Collection of Tom Phillips

What are their names? What are their stories? From every walk of life and every level of society they come: babies, bathers, scouts, soldiers, mothers, nurses, policemen, shopkeepers, tradesmen, salvationists, barmaids, fishermen; on picnics, in gardens, on bicycles, in charabancs, by aspidistras, in school rooms, round maypoles, on playing fields, at war.

We Are The People presents over 1000 postcards of ordinary people made exceptional by the lens of the camera. These images, all real photographs in postcard form, have been selected from the extensive collection of the artist, Tom Phillips, a postcard addict for a quarter of a century.

In the first half of the 20th Century, the picture postcard transformed the art of portraiture from elite pastime to popular craze. Photographic equipment was cheaper, film faster, studios sprang up in every town, on every seaside promenade. In this democratic new medium, cook and chatelaine, poacher and gamekeeper, boss and labourer, manager and clerk were suddenly equal. Everyone became a postcard.

Tom Phillips says: "I have 50,000 of these photo postcards and have looked at two million or so in the course of this project. In this selection are most of my favourites: images that speak to me and I hope to others. They are historic in the sense that this was the first time people stepped into the light and were seen as individuals rather than the unpictured masses of previous centuries. With these cards I wanted to make an alternative National Portrait Gallery featuring the rest of the nation, those that did the work, bore the children, fought the wars - the previously unknown and unsung."

The exhibition is divided into themes that include Picnic, Make Believe, Aspidistra, Man and Child, Women in Uniform and Soldiers. Each section is prefaced by an enlarged version of a key image.

Studio portraits, easily available to all, introduced new possibilities for fantasy and aspiration. Sitters could pose against classical pillars, voluptuous velvet drapes or in fancy dress as cowboys, on cruise liners, at the wheel of a dummy motorcar or in a cardboard aeroplane.

The postcards in the exhibition originate from many different photographers and studios across Britain and are testament to the changing fashions and trends in commercial portrait photography, as well as the changing tastes in dress and pastimes of the sitters. Collected as "anonymous" subjects, the National Portrait Gallery hopes that relatives will spot their grandparents or great-grandparents and bring back their names and stories.

Linked to the exhibition is a display of postcards at the Horniman Museum, for further information visit www.horniman.ac.uk

Tom Phillips (b.1937) studied at St Catherine's College, Oxford, and the Camberwell School of Art (1961-3). He became a Royal Academician in1984. His work is in several public collections, including the British Museum, Tate, MoMA New York and the National Gallery Australia. He also has several works in the National Portrait Gallery collection including portraits of Iris Murdoch, Susan Greenfield and the recently completed portrait of former National Portrait Gallery Director Charles Saumarez Smith.

As well as being a painter, Phillips is a writer. His book The Postcard Century (2000)is widely recognised as the definitive book on the twentieth century postcard. Other publications include A Humument (1998) and Dante's Inferno (1985).

Publication
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue with essays by Tom Phillips, Dr Elizabeth Edwards, Curator of Photographs at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, with a preface by James Fenton, poet and essayist. Published in March 2004, 336 pages, 900 colour illustrations. Price £20 (paperback).

Postcard Pack
Postcard pack containing 12 postcards from the collection of Tom Phillips

Talks and Events

Thursday 15 April 7pm
We are the People
Tom Phillips, artist and curator of the exhibition We Are the People, discusses the ideas behind the show

Friday 16, Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 April, 11am - 4pm
Holiday Activites for Families: We Are the People (Studio Gallery)
£1 per family, tickets available from the Ticket Desk on the day - no children will be admitted without accompanying adult
Taking the We Are the People as inspiration, come along and be photographed with a selection of props, from airplanes to cars. Ticket price includes a print

Saturday 17 April 3pm (Meet in Main Hall)
Exhibition Talk: We Are the People
Susan Bright, writer and independent photography producer, explores the current exhibition

Thursday 13 May 7pm
Worlds in a Small Room
A survey of the history of high street and fairground photographic portrait studios with Roger Hargreaves, Photography Education Officer, National Portrait Gallery

Sunday 16 May 12 - 4pm (Studio Gallery)
Admission free
Postcard Fair
Inspired by the exhibition We Are the People this is a chance to purchase a range of vintage postcards from established sellers in the postcard world

Saturday 29 May 3pm (Meet in Main Hall)
Exhibition Talk: We Are The People
With Andy Golding, Chair, Department of Design Digital Media & Photography University of Westminster

Thursday 10 June 1.10pm
Postcard Photographs/Family Objects
Elizabeth Edwards, Head of Photograph Collections / Lecturer in Visual Anthropology, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, discusses the function of photographs as 'social objects' in family and community narratives

National Portrait Gallery opening hours
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday: 10am - 6pm
(Gallery closure commences at 5.50pm)
Late Opening: Thursday, Friday: 10am - 9pm (Gallery closure commences at 8.50pm)
Recorded information: 020 7312 2463
General information: 020 7306 0055
Website: www.npg.org.uk

Go to a large print, text-only version of this site

All images and text are subject to copyright protection. 12 May 2008