Distinguished British photographer Colin Jones, himself once a dancer with the Royal Ballet, is about to show his work at the TopFoto Gallery in north Edenbridge.

Dame Beryl Grey, one of our greatest ballerinas, is to open the exhibition to an invited audience, in advance of its opening to the public on 18 July.

The exhibition is the result of a lifetime of photographing the English National Ballet and other great companies. As a young dancer in the Royal Ballet, Colin Jones bought his first camera whilst running an errand for Margot Fonteyn, and never looked back. When he was offered a top job photographing for the Observer newspaper, at a time when it was the great leader of photo-journalism, he was generously released from his just-renewed Royal Ballet contract by Ninette de Valois.

Ballet dancers are athletes; the strength and poise to get that magical lightness is to Olympic level. The photographs are everything that ballet represents. They have a luminous intensity and beauty, and they do not shield the viewer from the self-discipline and relentless hard work that is required to get to the top of world ballet.

The portraits are not only of the earlier greats – Nureyev, Grey, Fonteyn – but also of contemporary dancers such as the sublime Tamara Rojo, who has just electrified 10,000 people at the O2 arena, dancing Juliet to Carlos Acosta’s Romeo.

Not to be missed.

Exhibition 18 July-26 August. Free entry; free parking; shop. 09.30-5pm Mon-Fri; 09.30-1pm Sat. Tel: 01732 863 939

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The next exhibition at the Topfoto Gallery is The Art of Food Photography. Featuring the work of Marie-Louise Avery, a well known London food photographer working for advertising, design and editorial clients. This collection of images reflects the various aspects of her work, but especially those images that stand for themselves in their own right. Also worth visiting to see some aspects of what goes on behind the scenes of a food photoshoot!

www.MarieLouiseAvery.com

thePictureKitchen

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Wednesday’s opening of the Beat Hotel: photographs by Harold Chapman was just brilliant.  Harold was on outstanding form for this, the first major UK retrospective of his Beat years, and rose effortlessly to the challenge of being interviewed by John Wilson for Front Row (Radio 4 – see link, Harold is the final item), and Zinovy Zinik for the BBC World Service Moscow, and the Guardian (filmed and interviewed) – all in sequence in the hours before the 200-strong crowd arrived to congratulate him on the show.

Don’t miss Harold’s brilliant interview on Front Row www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t3tcv

The Beat Hotel, photographs by Harold Chapman is showing at the Proud Chelsea gallery, 161 Kings Road, London until 29 August 2010 and then comes to the home ground, the TopFoto Gallery, in the autumn. Limited edition prints, signed by Harold Chapman, are available from £350 ex VAT for the duration.

A mix of photos of the opening attached – all taken by Claire Parry and copyright Claire Parry/TopFoto.co.uk.

Huge thanks and congratulations to Harold, Claire, and the Proud team who worked so hard to make this important exhibition happen.

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Textiles: Friday 19 November – Thursday 25 November, 2010

 Though we are primarily a photographic gallery of course…. we’re also looking forward to hosting an exhibition of textile work by several locally based artists including Jacqui Adkins and Jo Senior. Couple of pictures of Jo Senior’s work – lovely.  More details as we have them!

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Just finished creating the new exhibition for our autumn season and delivered it to London until it comes here in October. The Beat Hotel: Photographs by Harold Chapman. I don’t want to give too much away but this is going to be one of the most important exhibitions in the UK for a long time, by anyone’s standards.

Harold Chapman, living quietly in his hometown of Deal, is still not as widely known as his household-name contemporaries but that’s changing rapidly. Chapman, as he is known, lived amongst the Beat poets and artists in Paris in the 1950s, at the “fleabag shrine” that was the now-famous Beat Hotel and home to William Burroughs, Brion Gysin (currently subject of a major retrospective in New York), Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Gregory Corso, Ian Somerville and others.

Chapman’s negatives of the Beat era, 50 years old and originally developed under his bed as a make-shift dark room, are extremely fragile. For the first and only time, he has allowed the negatives to be taken out, by the TopFoto Gallery, and put into the hands of master printer Robin Bell.  As the silver gelatin prints came to life, revealing the grace and perception of Chapman’s original intention in a way that has never been seen, including by Harold himself, we all witnessed the utter magic that is possible from putting together two absolute masters of their craft.

When I took the prints to Harold, who was doubtful of the possibility of rescuing the negatives, he studied each one with the razor-sharp attention of the artist and then pronounced: “perfect”.

Flora

Dates for The Beat Hotel: photographs by Harold Chapman

London: Proud Chelsea, 161 Kings Road - 29 July to 29 August, 2010

Kent: TopFoto Gallery, 1 Fircroft Way, Edenbridge - 4 October to 17 November, 2010

Prints: Signed, limited edition silver gelatin prints and limited edition giclée prints available (1-30). Prices start at £300 ex VAT.

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Motor cycle and racing car champion John Surtees was at the Topfoto Gallery last night to give a talk about his career illustrated with pictures from the TopFoto archive. A rapt audience were delighted by his fascinating stream of memories and anecdotes. Afterwards he signed photos and booklets in aid of the Eden Valley Museum

A small gathering to view the Ken Russell exhibition last night coincided with the publication of a big feature on us in Amateur Photographer magazine. Oxted-based picture researcher Charlotte Lippmann and TopFoto marketing manager John Balean are pictured admiring both the feature and the original Ken Russell photograph – Private Eye (a man reading a newspaper outside an optician’s shop!).

We sold several of the limited edition prints, including one of ballerina Frances Pidgeon on tip-toes under a hip bath (“perfect for my bathroom” said the buyer) and have decided to extend the exhibition to Saturday 19 June (we’ll take it down that morning). 

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