Anthony Grant Portrait of Jeremy Irons

Anthony Grant celebrity portraits: an exhibition in London

SOURCE <– See other celebrity portraits here.

Some 30 years ago, when Anthony Grant’s father died of cancer at the age of 55, Anthony decided he would do something positive to help people with the disease.

He says: “I went home and wrote letters to a long list of well known people I’d always wanted to meet with the idea of photographing them and using my portraits to raise funds for the Royal Marsden Hospital. The response was completely overwhelming and I was soon taking pictures of such diverse figures as John Gielgud, Henry Moore, Anthony Hopkins, Joanna Lumley, Dudley Moore, Harold Wilson, Enoch Powell and John Cleese.

Within a short space of time I was able to hold a series of exhibitions of my work, beginning at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, before touring the country and displaying the collection at many galleries and museums. I wanted to extend the idea, so I approached my sitters with the idea of photographing them in the various guises of the legendary or historical figure they would most like to have been. This produced an extraordinarily varied response and culminated in the publication of my book “Double Takes” (Robson Books).

Twenty-five years ago the entire collection was put on show at a fund-raising exhibition at the National Theatre. So it is with great delight on my part that the National has offered to stage a retrospective exhibition of this work from Monday 5 March until 24 March.

At this show, I intend to highlight the reasons why the sitters were so forthcoming in the first place – the sad fact being that the cause for which we were raising money then is as valid, if not more so, today. I am linking the National Theatre show to the “Just Giving” website where visitors will be asked to make any donations they can online to the Royal Marsden. Certain key images (signed) will be for sale to help raise even more.”