Iconic portraits from the pages of trail-blazing magazine, The Face celebrated in a major exhibition at the NPG.
Opening on 20 February 2025, The Face Magazine: Culture Shift will bring together more than 200 prints by over 80 photographers – including Sheila Rock, Stéphane Sednaoui, David LaChapelle, Corinne Day, Elaine Constantine, Juergen Teller and Sølve Sundsbø. With many images exhibited for the first time away from the magazine’s pages, the NPG exhibition will explore the impact of The Face on Eighties, Nineties and Noughties culture in Britain and beyond, as well as its influence today.
Launching the National Portrait Gallery’s 2025 programme, The Face Magazine: Culture Shift (20 February – 18 May 2025) will be the first major museum exhibition to focus on the iconic portraiture and fashion photography captured for The Face, a cult British magazine that has shaped the tastes of the nation’s youth. Featuring 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, as well as its continued impact on the publishing landscape and the worlds of fashion and music. Organised thematically and chronologically, the exhibition will include images created 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 exhibition will open with 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. The magazine’s power to promote music talent, from unknown faces to turbocharging careers, was on the rise, and photographers were given the space and freedom to create iconic images. While initially billed as ‘Rock’s Final Frontier’, The Face pushed its influence beyond music, spearheading the influence of stylists in magazine photography, and it was soon proclaiming itself ‘The World’s Best Dressed Magazine’.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, The Face magazine adopted an aesthetic and style that was in line with the emergence of acid house music, a new clubbing scene and the subsequent explosion of rave culture. As photography evolved in the Nineties from analogue to digital formats, The Face was also at the forefront of exploring the creative potential of 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.
The Face ceased publication in 2004, but fifteen years later, the publication was relaunched in print and online, returning to a radically altered publishing landscape. Navigating this new terrain, The Face has continued with its original vision for a disruptive, creative and inclusive magazine, championing fresh talent in photography, fashion, music and graphic design. The exhibition will close with work from this new chapter.
Listings
The Face Magazine: Culture Shift: 20 February – 18 May 2025
National Portrait Gallery, St. Martin's Place, London, WC2H 0HE
Tickets: £23, with concession from £1 - Free for Members
Open Daily: 10:30 - 18:00, Friday & Saturday: 10.30 – 21.00
Further Information: The Face Magazine: Culture Shift - National Portrait Gallery