Friday, November 23, 2007

The Prolific Terence Pepper



Had lunch with Terence Pepper, the Curator of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery. I gave him a copy of my novels Crushed and Frantic. In return, he gave me his delectable, glossy books: Angus McBean Portraits and Horst Portraits. That's the best barter I've ever done! We spent most of the lunch trying to think of witty inscriptions for our books. In the end, his inscription was much more original than mine! Terence is currently curating the Vanity Fair exhibition for May 2008. It has already had loads of publicity - not surprising as 'some of the greatest portrait photographs of the 20th century' were published in Vanity Fair - a lot of them are going to be on show at the exhibition, thanks to Terence's curating skills. He's also bringing out a fully illustrated book (with curator David Friend) on the show which I drool to own. The snag is, I shan't be able to do another barter. No way am I going to finish my new book by May next year - unless a miracle happens.