The Portraits of an Icon exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery is a collection not only of beautiful photographs but of memories of a beautiful soul. Audrey Hepburn, the Givenchy girl, will always be one of the most talented and iconic actresses. Her early training as a ballerina in the Netherlands instilled in her a powerful work ethic which endured throughout her lifetime. She starred in twenty-seven films and five plays for which she won two Academy awards, three Baftas, three Golden Globe Awards, two Tony Awards, one Emmy and one Grammy. Her final award came towards the end of her life in 1992 when she was presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award, having become the Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF in 1988.
What I loved about this exhibition was that it fully credited the photographers, something which too often is overlooked when the subject is so famous. I remember having to do a significant amount of research to find out who took the iconic Breakfast at Tiffany’s photos when doing a photography project at school. For artists, their name rises to fame with their paintings, while photographs of famous people can often become well know without an awareness of the photographer. We see Marilyn Munroe through the eyes of artist Andy Warhol not Gene Korman who took the original still of Munroe for the film ‘Niagara.’
The photographs in the exhibition traced Hepburn’s career from her Broadway debut as Gigi in 1951 to her first leading film role in ‘Roman Holiday’ in 1954 through to her later films in which she redefined feminine identity rather than showing a fairytale transformation of girl into woman as she did in ‘Sabrina,’ ‘Funny Face,’ and ‘My Fair Lady.’
In my Extended Essay which I wrote on beauty, including the golden ratio (1:1.618) and symmetry, I measured the ratios in the faces of several women we consider beautiful including Audrey Hepburn. I found that classically beautiful Grace Kelly consistently came closest in several of the ratios I measured. We call her ‘classically’ beautiful because it is this ratio that the ancient Greeks represented in their Hellenistic sculptures. What I found when closely examining Hepburn is that she has unusual proportions: a small forehead, oversized eyes, dark eyebrows and a square face not the classic oval. Yet these distinctive elements are what make her so stunning.
Hepburn is all the more beautiful for her shining personality. The most beautiful portraits are of beautiful people. She lived her own words: “For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.” Photographers often spoke of her personality and talent not purely her physical beauty. Cecil Beaton, who photographed her several times and designed the outfits for the black and white Ascot in ‘My Fair Lady’ wrote that “It took the rubble of Belgium, an English accent, and an America success to launch the striking personality that best exemplifies our new Zeitgeist.” Richard Avedon firstly described her “gazelle-eyes” and went on to talk of her “early-blooming theatrical expertise.” As Hepburn said herself “Happiest girls are the prettiest girls.”
Avedon’s 1953 portrait was one of my five favourites in the exhibition. The high contrast allowed it to become a minimalist, effortless stencil. I loved the light flickering in her wide eyes in the portrait by Jack Cardiff, taken in 1955, during the filming of ‘War and Peace.’ The portrait by Yousaf Karsh captures her almost in profile with striking, clean lines of black on white in the flick of her eyeliner and shine in her hair. Karsh wrote that “Beauty is combined with an insatiable appetite for life, and for work too.”
I have always loved Howell Conant’s ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ photos taken in 1961. Hepburn transformed Truman Capote’s socialite Holly Golightly into an independent spirit, complicating the promiscuity which made the role such a risky one to take. Having read the book earlier this summer, I have an even greater respect for Hepburn who captured a spirit as ambiguously tormented as Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby, each living in a dream world.
While filming ‘The Nun’s Story’ in 1958, Hepburn wrote, “coming to Africa is certainly one of the greatest experiences of my life. Everything I see here and feel is so completely stimulating. Wherever the eye can see there is beauty in such a very visual way.” People who have been to Africa talk of the ‘Africa Bug’ – you cannot go to Africa just once. The excitement of her words is reflected in the photographs taken in 1992 in Sudan and Somalia with the UNICEF children taken not long before she died in 1993.
The final portrait which stood out for me was by Steven Meisel, taken for Vanity Fair shoot in 1991. She gazes out at us, her wide smile reaching up to her eyes, as kind and enchanting as always, now surrounded by the crinkles of experience, forever graceful.
Map Memories 