National Portrait Gallery
It’s more than 40 years since gangling Neasden schoolgirl Lesley Hornby became Twiggy, the world’s first supermodel, almost over night. Her doe eyes and elfin crop defined Sixties London, and now that decade’s poster girl is turning 60 herself. The National Portrait Gallery is leading the celebrations with an exhibition and book dedicated to her career: her early years in fashion, her stint as a Broadway actress and singer, and her recent return to modelling as the mature face of M&S.
In pictures: A new exhibition documenting the Stones in their heyday opens at the National Portrait Gallery today
In pictures: The shortlist for the prestigious prize, worth more than £25,000, has been announced
In pictures: The 2010 shortlist includes an artist's painting of his mother on her deathbed
One of the bigger photographic prizes to be talent-scouting today is the National Portrait Gallery's: an open, international competition that this year is sponsored by law firm Taylor Wessing and has a first prize of £12,000. The 60 portraits selected for the exhibition represent a spectrum of styles ranging from documentary shots like Tom Stoddart's of Rupert Murdoch for Time magazine to Hendrik Kerstens' more conceptual take on a seventeenth century Dutch portrait (Bag, 2007, above).
