Sir David Attenborough
© Sam Barker
Sir David Attenborough
by Sam Barker
inkjet print, 2015
18 in. x 15 1/4 in. (456 mm x 386 mm) image size
Purchased, 2016
Photographs Collection
NPG x199654
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- 100 Photographs, 2018, p. 142 Read entry
The distinguished broadcasting career of Sir David Attenborough (b.1926) began in 1952 when he joined the BBC. He launched his first Natural History programme, Zoo Quest, in 1954, and in 1957 formed the BBC’s Travel and Exploration unit. As Controller of BBC Two from 1965, Attenborough oversaw the introduction of colour television in Britain two years later. He is celebrated for writing and presenting the ‘Life’ series and in recent years has adopted a more environmentalist stance. This photograph, commissioned by the Sunday Times for Attenborough’s ninetieth year, concentrates our gaze to the ‘great mind’. Sam Barker (b.1971), the youngest of fifteen children by poet George Barker, has worked as a photographer in both editorial and advertising since 1997.
- Rab MacGibbon, National Portrait Gallery: The Collection, p. 121
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