Faces of the Century. A Sainsbury’s Photographic Exhibition.

Preface by Charles Saumarez Smith. National Portrait Gallery, London, 1999. Wraps, 240 pages.  Very good with minor signs of prior use including a bit of wear at corners and name of previous owner on margin of fourth leaf. Portraits and other photographs of people selected by David Bowie, Asa Briggs, Anna Ford, Max Hastings, Stephen Hawking, Helena Kennedy, Trevor Phillips, David Puttnam, John Sainsbury, and Vivienne Westwood.  Subjects of portraits include the selectors and many other well known people such as Queen Elizabeth II, Winston Churchill, Bertrand Russell, Margaret Thatcher, Samuel Beckett, Sid Vicious, Una Dugdale, Emmeline Parkhurst, Rolling Stones, Jean Shrimpton, Evelyn Waugh, Vita Sackville-West, Crick & Watson, Emmeline Pankhurst, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Rutherford, Sir Alexander Fleming, Diana, Princess of Wales, Shirley Bassey, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Hardy, Benjamin Britten, T.S. Eliot, Henry Moore,  Noel Coward, Francis Bacon, Vivien Leigh, Johnny Rotten, et al.  Summary:

Faces of the Century (1999), published to accompany a major exhibition sponsored by Sainsbury’s at the National Portrait Gallery in London, is a sweeping visual survey of the 20th century. Through the medium of portraiture, the book traces the dramatic shifts in British and global society, moving from the rigid hierarchies of the Victorian era to the media-saturated celebrity culture of the millennium.

Core Themes and Narrative

• The Century in Portraits: The book is organized chronologically, using faces—both famous and anonymous—as the primary vehicle for historical narrative. It explores how the "public face" of power, labor, and art evolved over 100 years.

• The Rise of the Individual: A central theme is the democratization of the portrait. It documents the transition from the formal, aristocratic studio sittings of the early 1900s to the candid, democratic, and often raw photojournalism of the post-war era.

• Cultural Icons and Everymen: The collection features a "Who's Who" of the century, including figures like Winston Churchill, The Beatles, and Princess Diana, juxtaposed with nameless soldiers, factory workers, and protesters who shaped the century's social fabric.

Visual and Technical Scope

• Evolution of the Medium: The book acts as a technical timeline of photography itself. It begins with the soft-focus Pictorialism of the early 1900s, moves through the sharp-focus Modernism of the 1930s, and ends with the saturated, high-impact color work of the 1990s.

• Master Photographers: The volume showcases a staggering array of talent, including Cecil Beaton, Bill Brandt, David Bailey, and Lord Snowdon, highlighting the different "finishes" and psychological depths each artist brought to the human face.