Writers by Fay Godwin
Here are some portraits of writers by the late Fay Godwin. The photographer’s archive, acquired by the British Library contains over 11,000 photographs and letters. The selection here includes this delightful study of Jean Rhys, as well as the young Salman Rushdie, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Doris Lessing, Tom Stoppard, Angela Carter, Margaret Drabble, Saul Bellow and Edna O’Brien.
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Enjoyed that. I could look at portraits all day.
I mentioned in a blog a while ago that I used to have this book, and still do actually, with photos of writers in it and I could never see myself there. It’s not that my face is exactly without character but I’m not sure I actually have a photo of me that I like. I can tolerate what my wife did to the photograph she took of me in Dublin airport because it presents me as a character. It seems a little less me. When I resized the jpeg a couple of days ago I did have a look at the original and went, “Naaaah.”
jb says: You’re in good company, Jim. Philip Larkin is reported as describing portraits of himself as looking like “the late Stan Laurel”, “CS Lewis on a drugs charge”, or displaying “as much expression as a lump of sugar”. On other occasions he complained he looked like “a cross between an egg and a bloodhound” and “an egg sculpted in lard, with goggles on”.
Serves me, right, John, for not checking here often enough. These were a treat.
jb says: Salman Rushdie, way back when . . .