Sir Michael Kemp Tippett
(1905-1998), ComposerSitter in 25 portraits
Tippett attended the Royal College of Music (1923-1928), and was recognised as one of Britain's leading composers with the premiere of his three-part oratorio A Child of our Time, at the Adelphi Theatre in 1944. He enjoyed a long career, composing choral works, symphonies, concertos, string quartets and operas; finding inspiration in Beethoven, Elizabethan madrigals, folk, jazz and blues. In the early 1940s, while director of music at Morley College, he became friends with Britten and Pears, going on to write Boyhood's End for them in 1943. Tippett composed a total of six operas, including the greatly successful King Priam (1962). Appointed a CBE in 1959, he was knighted in 1966.
by Douglas Glass
bromide print, circa 1960
NPG P421
by Gertrude Hermes
bronze head, 1966
NPG 5970
by J.S. Lewinski
bromide print, June 1977
NPG P1065
by Arnold Newman
bromide print, 1978
NPG P150(36)
by Martin Rose
acrylic on canvas, 1989
NPG 6043
by Cecil Beaton
bromide print on white card mount, 1944
NPG x14220
by Georges Maiteny
bromide print, 1950s
NPG x36180
by Central Press
vintage print, 18 July 1957
NPG x194204
Sir Michael Kemp Tippett; Benjamin Britten
by Erich Auerbach
bromide print, 1960
NPG x15239
by Walter Bird
bromide print, 14 November 1966
NPG x21954
by Michael Ward
selenium-toned bromide print, 7 December 1972
NPG x47150
by Denis Waugh
chromogenic print, December 1979
NPG x134843
by Neil Drabble
bromide fibre print, 1992
NPG x127397
by Hubert Leslie
cut paper silhouette, 1920s-1940s
NPG D466
by Cecil Beaton
pencil, late 1960s-early 1970s
NPG D17945(13)
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