Photographic Portraits of Contemporary Designers

Tord Boontje
by Tom Miller
11 February 2003
NPG x126056

Past display archive
20 September 2003 - 25 March 2004

Room 38a

Free

Design plays a part in all our daily lives and we are probably more design conscious today than we have ever been. To celebrate the launch of the first London Design Festival, which begins on September 22, 2003, this display reveals some of the familiar faces behind contemporary British design.

The photographs have been selected from the Gallery's extensive holdings of portraits of designers as well as four new portraits from the recently established Deloitte Acquisition Fund . The display is by no means comprehensive but intended to represent a cross-section of designers from different generations working across many design disciplines who all play a part in making Britain an international centre of excellence in design.

In addition to photographic portraits the National Portrait Gallery has commissioned and acquired portraits of designers in other media. Sir Paul Smith by painter James Lloyd and Baron Foster by sculptor John Davies can be found here in the Contemporary Galleries. Portrait heads of Richard Rogers by Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, and Zandra Rhodes by Andrew Logan together with a full length ceramic sculpture of the late Jean Muir by Glenys Barton are on display on the Balcony Gallery.

Dame Zaha Hadid
by Steve Speller
1994
NPG x87300

Jasper Morrison
by Neil Wilder
13 October 2000
NPG x125495

Tom Dixon
by Trevor Ray Hart
April 1999
NPG x126059

Jony Ive
by Jason Bell
24 September 1998
NPG x126097