Colin MacInnes

1 portrait matching these criteria:

- set matching 'Photographs by Ida Kar, 1960s-1970s'

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Colin MacInnes

by Ida Kar
2 1/4 inch square film negative, 1957
Purchased, 1999
Photographs Collection
NPG x128598

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Ida Kar (1908-1974), Photographer. Artist or producer associated with 1567 portraits, Sitter in 137 portraits.

This portraitback to top

MacInnes first visited Gallery One as an art critic before renting a room in the D'Arblay Street building (1956-8), where Kar photographed him. MacInnes became a great friend of Victor Musgrave and Ida Kar and wrote in the foreword of the Whitechapel catalogue that 'an Ida Kar portrait is at once identifiable by its purity and distinction'.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Freestone, Clare (appreciation) Wright, Karen (appreciation), Ida Kar Bohemian Photographer, 2011 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 10 March to 19 June 2011), p. 103 Read entry

    The son of the singer James Campbell McInnes and the novelist Angela Thirkell (another of Kar's sitters), Maclnnes spent his childhood in Australia, and, in the late 1940s, a period working in Germany, which inspired his first novel To the Victors the Spoils (1950). Back in London Maclnnes first visited Gallery One at Litchfield Street as an art critic before renting a room in the D'Arblay Street building (1956-8), where Kar photographed him. Here, within Soho's 'two square miles of vice', Maclnnes wrote City of Spades (1957), the first of his London novels, which empathetically depicted teenagers and black immigrants. Maclnnes became a great friend of Musgrave and Kar and wrote in the foreword to the Whitechapel catalogue that 'an Ida Kar portrait is at once identifiable by its purity and distinction; she brings to each one an intuitive penetration and a thoroughly conscientious professional care.' Inspired by his friend Terry Taylor, who became Kar's assistant, Maclnnes's novel Absolute Beginners (1959) stars a photographer. His biographer, Tony Gould, notes that 'the only predictable thing about Colin was his unpredictability', and as such his later works are as varied as a history of British music hall and historical novels.

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Events of 1957back to top

Current affairs

Harold Macmillan takes over as Conservative prime minister, manoeuvring Eden out of power after his poor handling of the Suez Crisis the previous year.
The Wolfenden Report recommends that homosexuality should no longer be a criminal offence. It still took ten years, however, before any changes were made to the law on homosexuality with the Sexual Offences Act in 1967.

Art and science

The Today Programme is first broadcast on Radio 4. This early morning current affairs programme is known for breaking major stories early, and for its hard-hitting approach and tough interviewing style. Presenters have included: Robert Robinson, Brian Redhead, Libby Purves, Jenni Murray, Sue MacGregor, John Humphrys, Anna Ford and James Naughtie.

International

The Treaty of Rome leads to the formation of the European Economic Community. Officially beginning on 1st January 1958, the EEC established a European Common Market, where goods, services, labour and capital could move freely within the European member countries, and shared policies were agreed for labour, social welfare, agriculture, transport, and foreign trade. The EEC preceded the European Community, and the European Union.

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