The cover photograph for Kate Tempest’s critically-acclaimed debut solo album, Everybody Down, taken by Dav Stewart, is the latest work to be added to the National Portrait Gallery Collection, it was announced today.
The portrait will go on display alongside some of the most celebrated poets working in Britain today, including Dame Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Armitage and Benjamin Zephaniah, in Picture the Poet, a major touring photography exhibition aimed at encouraging thousands of young people to engage with poetry. The exhibition has been organised by the National Portrait Gallery in collaboration with Apples and Snakes and the National Literacy Trust.
The acclaimed poet and spoken word artist, Kate Tempest, has performed across the world with artists such as Billy Bragg and John Cooper Clarke, and has worked with a range of organisations, including The Old Vic and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her debut solo album, Everybody Down, was released in 2014 and was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize the same year.
The photographer, Dav Stewart, and art director, Luke Eastop, worked with Tempest on her album and single covers throughout her early unsigned career. When she signed to the record company Big Dada in 2013, Tempest continued their working relationship and the portrait for her album was taken in a studio set up in the photographer's east London flat.
The photograph of Tempest will join the major touring exhibition Picture the Poet when it opens at The Collection in Lincoln on 1 May 2015, where she will be the youngest figure on display. The photography exhibition, from the National Portrait Gallery Collection, features over fifty portraits of some of Britain's leading living poets, including Poet Laureate and children's writer, Dame Carol Ann Duffy; former Poet Laureate and writer, Sir Andrew Motion; poet and novelist, Ben Okri; the acclaimed children’s poet, Michael Rosen; and dub poet and musician, Benjamin Zephaniah.
The aim of Picture the Poet is to inspire young people and develop their literacy skills. Since the exhibition opened at its first tour venue, The Forum in Norwich in May 2014, over 1000 young people and school children have taken part in bespoke workshops - taking photographs, writing poems and performing live - in response to the portraits on display. Britain’s leading performance poetry organisation, Apples and Snakes, have developed a series of engaging workshops at each tour venue, enabling school children and young people to work with artists and poets and create their own work. The National Literacy Trust is providing extensive expertise for schools in each region to enable them to develop highly engaging, effective and creative routes into teaching literacy, as well as working with venues to arrange school visits to the exhibition.
High profile poets, including Francesca Beard, Ian Macmillan, Sir Andrew Motion, Lemn Sissay and Benjamin Zephaniah, have praised the project and have been lending their support by contributing to the workshops and performing at special events at each of the tour venues.
Picture the Poet will be on display at The Collection, Lincoln, from 1 May until 2 August 2015. The exhibition will then tour to Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens, and Tullie House, Carlisle.
For more information about the poets in the exhibition, special interviews and videos, and to access learning resources, please visit npg.org.uk/picturethepoet
Picture the Poet is supported by Arts Council England.
