Evelyn Waugh looks, frankly, like he’s just read a line from one of his own books in the silent section of the library, and is relying on his bracing hands on his knees to give him the strength necessary to resist the inevitable eruption of giggles from within. Waugh’s gaze seems past us, slightly over our shoulders, in Irving Penn’s square photograph from 1952. His thick wool suit is more creased than his forehead, near where the top of the photograph ends.

Snowdon’s verbose (can we use that word to describe an image?) photograph of Salman Rushdie in his London home shortly after he won the Booker Prize for Midnight’s Children shows Rushdie in a Windsor chair in the corner of the room, head turned towards us, chin in his hand, bathetic.

Continue reading ‘Vogue 100’ at the National Portrait Gallery →