Sir Portrait - Hardcover

SIR ROY STRONG is a well-known historian and garden writer, lecturer, critic and columnist and a regular contributor to television and radio programmes. He was Director of the National Portrait Gallery from 1967 to 1973 and of the Victoria and Albert Museum from 1974 to 1987. In 1980 he was awarded the prestigious Shakespeare Prize by the FVS Foundation of Hamburg in recognition of his contribution to the arts in the UK. He has published a number of highly acclaimed books. Sir Roy lives in Hereford, where, with his late wife, Julia Trevelyan Oman, who died in 2003, he designed one of England's largest post-war formal gardens. He now works full-time as a writer and broadcaster. JOHN SWANNELL assisted David Bailey for four years before setting up his own studio working for magazines such as Vogue, Harpers & Queen, the Sunday Times and Tatler. In 1993 he was awarded a Fellowship of The Royal Photographic Society; one of the youngest members to have achieved this status at the time. In 1994, Diana, The Princess of Wales personally commissioned John to photograph her together with her sons. In 2012 John was commissioned to take the only official portrait of HM The Queen to celebrate Her Diamond Jubilee. The National Portrait Gallery, London, has 128 of John's photographs, and his work is also in the collections of the V&A, The National Gallery of Scotland and The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

'This magnificently potty book takes us through 30 version of Roy done after celebrated portraits, or in the manner of various schools. The book is a tease. As with everything Sir Roy does, there is more than meets the mirthful eye. Look at and read this book. You'll have a camp old time of it, but you'll learn more than you thought you might.' -- Christopher Fletcher Spectator