The exhibition will run at the gallery from the 20th February until the 18th May 2025.
It has been announced that the National Portrait Gallery will present an exhibition focusing on the portraiture and fashion photography captured for The Face, a cult British magazine that has shaped the tastes of the nation’s youth.
This new display will feature photographs, magazine covers and spreads, and film, the exhibition will use the medium of portraiture to explore The Face’s monumental influence throughout the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.
Displayed thematically and chronologically, The Face Magazine: Culture Shift will include images reated by some of the era’s most talented photographers, stylists and models, many of which have never been shown outside of the pages of the magazine.
The magazine was started by Nick Logan, formerly editor of New Musical Express (NME) in the 1970s and creator of teen music magazine Smash Hits. Logan spotted a gap in the market for a monthly title aimed at a youth audience interested in a broad range of subjects that weren’t being featured in glossy fashion publications, teen magazines or the music weeklies. In doing so, he invented a new genre of publishing: the style magazine.
This exhibition will open a selection of portraits and magazine spreads from The Face’s early years and the increasing overlap between music and fashion, with innovative graphic design by Neville Brody, who was the magazine’s Art Director from 1981 to 1986.
Meanwhile, it will also feature the work of Ray Petri who frequently collaborated with photographer Jamie Morgan. Between them, the images that they created were distinctive because of the fashion they featured – which drew inspiration from an eclectic range of references as well as the fact that they created space for black models within the fashion industry. Their first cover together, featuring British-Burmese model Nick Kamen (Winter Sports, Jamie Morgan, January 1984), was a key moment in The Face’s history, with fashion, photography and the discovery of a new face all coalescing to create an image that defined a new zeitgeist.
As the magazine developed from analogue to digital formats, The Face began exploring the creative potential f new image manipulation programs, which resulted in bold, colourful and ‘hyperreal’ images, which pushed fashion photography in a new direction – a return to glamour, but with a contemporary twist. This idea was pushed forward with the help of new Art Director, Lee Swillingham (one of the co-curators of this exhibition), who recognised that advances made in digital post-production technology offered photographers more creative potential.
While the magazine ceased publication in 2004, it returned 15 years later in print and online, returning to a radically altered publishing landscape. Navigating this new terrain, The Face has continued Logan’s original vision for a disruptive, creative and inclusive magazine, championing fresh talent in photography, fashion, music and graphic design, and the exhibition will close with work from this new chapter.
To book tickets for the exhibition visit: https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2025/face-magazine/