Exhibition Review: Norman Parkinson's A Century of Style

Last night, I found myself at the National Theatre along London’s Southbank, beating my way through the crowds up the winding staircase to grab a look at the new Norman Parkinson exhibition. Accompanied by one of my best friends, we found ourselves amongst a corporate event crowd where free wine and canapes were being served…well, who are we to say no?!

Fuelled with the complimentary red wine and duck ragu, we settled in to take a look around the (rather vast) selection on display, set to the score of the live jazz band playing below the exhibition space.

If you’re not familiar with Norman’s work, he’s been a seminal fashion photographer for many years and shot the likes of Audrey Hepburn, Calvin Klien and David Hockney. Known as one of Vogue’s prominent choices of photographer throughout the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, he was close with the likes of then-model Grace Coddington (now US Vogue’s Creative Director).

The National Theatre’s exhibition ‘Lifework: Norman Parkinson’s Century of Style’, marking the centenary of the photographer’s birth, is well worth a visit if you enjoy the fabulous glamour of the decades in which he shot. Turning his back on the almost ghostly-lit interior shots that dominated pre-war fashion, Parkinson took women out into the real world for the first time and set them against fantastic and sometimes astonishing backdrops. Now a regular trope in fashion spreads across magazines the world over, it was Parkinson who had the eye for this ‘action realism’, this photographic style that has long outlived him.

This shot sums up his style…

It is easy to see why he is regarded as the father of modern fashion photography. Many of the unexpected, bizarre, utterly exotic and juxtaposed locations that he shot were introduced in his canon of work. This exhibition looks at the key highlights of his notable career, spanning an impressive 56 years, and also includes his skilled and considered work as a portrait photographer…