Gertrude Lawrence

1 portrait of Gertrude Lawrence

© estate of Paul Tanqueray

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Gertrude Lawrence

by Paul Tanqueray
modern bromide print from original negative, 1932
12 3/4 in. x 9 in. (323 mm x 230 mm)
Photographs Collection
NPG x29700

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Paul Tanqueray (1905-1991), Photographer. Artist or producer associated with 186 portraits, Sitter in 8 portraits.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Rogers, Malcolm, Camera Portraits, 1989 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 20 October 1989 - 21 January 1990), p. 209 Read entry

    Noel Coward first met the most brilliant of his leading ladies in 1913 when she was a child-performer: 'Her face was far from pretty, but tremendously alive. She was very mondaine, carried a handbag with a powder-puff and frequently dabbed her generously turned-up nose. … I loved her from then onwards'. Her first great success was in Charlot's revue London Calling (1923), written by Coward, and in 1929 he created Bitter Sweet with her in mind. They starred together in Private Lives, an immediate success on both sides of the Atlantic, and thereafter she spent most of her time in New York. She was appearing triumphantly on Broadway in The King and I at the time of her death.

    Paul Tanqueray was, like Angus McBean, a pupil of Hugh Cecil, and set up his own studio in London at 139 Kensington High Street in 1924, moving to 8 Dover Street in 1930. He specialized in society and theatrical portraiture, working especially for Theatre World. He photographed Gertrude Lawrence against a background of skyscrapers evocative of New York, painted by his studio assistant Ida Davis, and caught both her wit and romantic allure.

Events of 1932back to top

Current affairs

Sir Oswald Mosley forms the British Union of Fascists. Mosley's party - nicknamed the Black Shirts after their uniform - was founded along the lines of Mussolini's Fascist Party in Italy and called for the replacement of parliamentary democracy with a system of elected executives. During the war Mosley was interned and the BUF was proscribed.

Art and science

John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton 'split the atom'. In fact, Cockcroft and Walton's achievement was to change the nucleus of one element into another by bombarding it with protons, rather than to literally spit an atom apart. Nevertheless 'splitting the atom' has become the popular way of describing this important stage in the development of nuclear technology.

International

Saudi Arabia is formed by the unification of the Kingdoms of Hijaz and Nejd under King Abdul Aziz.
Iraq is granted independence from the British mandate established by the League of Nations in 1919-20.

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