Neil Libbert: Photojournalist
Past display archive
17 September 2012 - 28 April 2013
Room 32
Free
Patrick Lichfield
by Neil Libbert
1970
NPG x136286
This first solo display of ten photographs by Neil Libbert celebrates Libbert’s fifty-five year career as a photojournalist.Born in Salford, Libbert studied at the Regional College of Art in Manchester before starting to work as a photographer and opening his own studio in the city in 1957. He joined the staff of the Manchester Guardian, and moved to the paper's London office in 1961. He stayed with the Guardian until 1965 before working under contract to The Sunday Times, the New York Times, Granada TV and the Illustrated London News until 1968 when he again became a freelance photographer. Libbert still regularly covers performing arts photography for the Observer.
This display focuses on key works from 1958 – 1984, many on show for the first time, and includes two portraits that were used on the front page of the Guardian newspaper. One of these photographs is of conservative politician and statesman, Sir Winston Churchill, with Sir Charles Wheeler, President of the Royal Academy, taken in 1963. The other cover photograph is of actress Jayne Mansfield, union leader Ted Hill, President of the Amalgamated Engineering Union William Carron, and general secretary of the Labour party, Morgan Philips. Other portraits on display are of novelist Kingsley Amis, artists Francis Bacon and Edward Burra, footballer George Best, photographer Patrick Lichfield, actors Helen Mirren and Paul Robeson, and playwright Harold Pinter.
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Related resources
Related portraits
- Harold Pinter (NPG P764)
- George Best (NPG P761)
- Edward Burra (NPG P763)
- Paul Robeson (NPG x136292)
- Jayne Mansfield; Ted Hill; Morgan Phillips; William John Carron, Baron Carron (NPG x136291)
- Kingsley Amis (NPG x136288)
- Sir Charles Thomas Wheeler; Winston Churchill (NPG x136287)
- Helen Mirren (NPG x136294)
- Patrick Lichfield (NPG x136286)
- Francis Bacon (NPG x136289)
Related sitters
- Sir Kingsley William Amis
- Francis Bacon
- George Best
- Edward John Burra
- William John Carron, Baron Carron
- Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
- Edward ('Ted') Hill
- Thomas Patrick John Anson, 5th Earl of Lichfield
- Jayne Mansfield (Vera Jane Palmer)
- Dame Helen Mirren
- Morgan Phillips
- Harold Pinter
- Paul Robeson
- Sir Charles Thomas Wheeler