BAFTA and Andy Gotts MBE are to run new photography exhibition Behind The Mask at Somerset House.
Starting Monday 20th January the exhibition will run until 7th February 2014. Some of the exhibit will then be moved to BAFTA 195 Piccadilly from 9th February until 16th February.
Behind The Mask is a BAFTA Future Archive collaboration with celebrity photgrapher Andy Gotts MBE. Gotts has been a celebrity photographer for 23 years and specialises in actors’ portraits. The exhibition is a photographic census of over one hundred international actors and actresses to have won or been nominated for a BAFTA since 1954.
The project has taken two years to complete with gotts travelling across the globe to photograph subjects including Lauren Bacall, Jeff Bridges, Daniel Day Lewis, Al Pacino, John Hurt, Sidney Poitier and Tilda Swinton.
BAFTA will project every image from the series onto the facade of its headquarters at 195 Piccadilly during the weekend of the EE British Academy Film Awards (15th and 16th February) as part of an art commission supported by luxury watch brand 88 Rue Du Rhone.
Andy Gotts MBE said: “Even though I have been given the title ‘celebrity photographer’ I have always seen myself as a photographer of actors. I have always been a movie buff and getting the opportunity to meet my matinée idols is beyond a dream come true. I specialize in character studies of the face and try to show a new and different side of world famous faces in my ‘warts and all’ style.”
All works are available for sale in limited editions of 25, with 60% of the proceeds going to BAFTA to support its year-round charitable work. The Somerset House exhibition is free to enter and open to the public from 10am to 6pm, daily.
