In the City

I curated In the City: Portraits from the City of London especially for the National Portrait Gallery. The intention was to place the unknown and unsung workers of London’s Square Mile alongside the familiar and famous corporate faces - striking a balance between the Gallery’s narrow institutional view of fame and celebrity and my own vision.

The portraits in the installation were extracted from a unique project - the largest photographic project of its kind carried out in the UK during the past 20 years.

In the City takes inspiration from People of the Twentieth Century by the German photographer August Sander and Irving Penn’s Small Trades series. The approach, using a 5x4 view camera, was uncompromising and formal, yet ‘subject sympathetic’ to reveal people in immaculate detail, regardless of their status.

There was insufficient space to display all 138 images from the project, so my role as curator was to ensure the “invisible” workforce were not lost in the selection process. Hence my insistence that the portrait of Von, the despatch rider, serve as an iconic image for all the publicity materials.

Ed Barber

Research Interests

Photography, portraiture, uniforms and identity.

Current Research

Edward recently started a practice based PhD at London College of Fashion - 'W1: World One / Portrait, Place and Appearance in London's West End'.