Photograph of the Month - May 2012
Past display archive
1 May - 31 May 2012
Room 31
Free
Michael Powell
by Fred Daniels
1945
NPG x135597
Film Director. Powell began his career with Rex Ingram at the Victorine Studios in Nice and then worked at Elstree studios where he met Alfred Hitchcock. In 1939 Alexander Korda introduced Powell to the Hungarian born screenwriter, Emeric Pressburger and they forged a partnership that began with The Spy in Black (1939), Contraband (1940) and The 49th Parallel (1941). The success of these films led to Powell and Pressburger establishing their production company, The Archers, in January 1942. The Archers’ many acclaimed Technicolor films include A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947) and The Red Shoes (1948).
The display of this portrait celebrates the publication of The Archers: Powell & Pressburger Portraits /Portrety Fred Daniels by Nigel Arthur and Ewa Reeves, and the digitally restored Powell and Pressburger satire The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) at BFI Southbank (18–31 May). This photograph is Daniels’s most famous portrait, and was used on the cover of the paperback edition of Powell’s autobiography A Life in Movies (1986).
Previous Photographs of the Month