Press Release

13 May 2008

EAMONN MCCABE: ARTISTS AND THEIR STUDIOS
16 June - 19 October 2008
Bookshop Gallery. Free admission.

Providing us with rare insights into what are usually intensely private realms, photographer Eamonn McCabe has produced an extensive portfolio of portraits of writers' rooms and artists' studios. For admirers of their work, these glimpses into private working lives are a revelation - an apparently erratic author's study is immaculate, sketches on the walls of artists' studios provide invaluable insight into their working practice. The portraits have been and continue to be published weekly in the Guardian Saturday Review, where they reach a wide public.

Now going one-step further, McCabe is releasing a series of portraits that locate the artists in their working environments. Published collectively in the book Artists and their Studios, the series documents the working lives of the most innovative artists of our time. In the same way that the important 1965 book Private View by critic John Russell and curator Bryan Robertson, which featured photographs by Lord Snowdon, depicted the leading artists of the 1960s, Artists and their Studios, including text by arts critic Michael McNay, continues in the same spirit of documentation and reportage. Broad in its scope, the series of 32 portraits features artists working in a variety of media, including senior artists such as Howard Hodgkin, Peter Blake and Bridget Riley as well as the younger stars of contemporary art such as Tracey Emin, Chis Offili and Simon Starling.

Coinciding with the publication of Artists and their Studios, the National Portrait Gallery presents a display of a selection of photographs from the book. The selection includes Marc Quinn, photographed in his studio against a backdrop of studies for his sculpture of Alison Lapper; Richard Long amidst one of his large-scale stone circles; and ceramicist Grayson Perry looming above his work bench, with a book intriguingly titled Sissies on Parade positioned perhaps not by accident in the photograph's foreground.

Revealing in the choice of works the artists choose to be photographed with, and the way the artists themselves present themselves to the camera, Artists and their studios is a remarkable collection showing our greatest artists at work.

Eamonn McCabe works as a professional portrait photographer, following several years as picture editor of the Guardian (1988-2001). As a young man he broke into national newspapers as a sports photographer and went on to win Sports Photographer of the Year an unprecedented four times and to be nominated as Photographer of the Year in 1985. He has had many exhibitions including at the Photographers' Gallery, London, and the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; and contributes to radio and television as a spokesperson on photography. He has been awarded an honorary doctorate of letters by the University of East Anglia and lectures regularly around the country on the role of the image in the media.

On the forthcoming display in the National Portrait Gallery's Bookshop Gallery, Eamonn McCabe says: 'I have always enjoyed working with loners. Early in my career it was boxers in the gym. Now it is artists, writers and poets. I love seeing where people work and what inspires them. I hope this collection of artists and their studios will inspire some of you viewing this show to go and create some 'art' of your own.'

For further press information and image requests please contact: Catherine Bromley, Press Office, National Portrait Gallery Tel: 020 7321 6620 (not for publication) Email: cbromley@npg.org.uk ; To download images: www.npg.org.uk/press

National Portrait Gallery opening hours Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday: 10am - 6pm (Gallery closure commences at 5.50pm) Late Opening: Thursday, Friday: 10am - 9pm (Gallery closure commences at 8.50pm) Nearest Underground: Leicester Square/Charing Cross Recorded information: 020 7312 2463 General information: 020 7306 0055 Website: www.npg.org.uk

Notes to Editors:

Artists and their Studios by Eamonn McCabe is published by Angela Patchell Books, priced £19.99 (ISBN: 978-1-906245-06-1). For more information about the book, please contact Angela Patchell on 01424 830311; info@angelapatchellbooks.com

The artists featured in the display are: Chris Offili, Bridget Riley, Michael Craig-Martin, Frank Bowling, Marc Quinn, Stuart Pearson-Wright, Simon Starling, Richard Long, David Mach, Maggi Hambling, Sandra Blow, Anthony Eyton, Howard Hodgkin and Grayson Perry.

Go to a large print, text-only version of this site

All images and text are subject to copyright protection. 22 November 2008