From Keats to Constable, Sigmund Freud to, erm, Ricky Gervais, intellectuals, artists, actors – and comics – have settled in Hampstead over the centuries.
Photographic portraits of cultural icons associated with the area go on display in the dining room at Fenton House in Hampstead Grove from March 1.
Hampstead’s Village People is a collaboration between the National Trust, which runs the 17th century house, and the National Portrait Gallery which has loaned 30 photographs of current and former residents who have helped make Hampstead the place it is today.
Diverse
Musicians as diverse as Edward Elgar and Boy George, husband and wife artists Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth, writers Martin Amis and Edith Sitwell, actors Richard Burton and Judi Dench, and yes, The Office and Night At The Museum star Gervais are among the famous faces in the exhibition.
Ivo Dawnay, director of the National Trust’s London Project, said: “Why is this corner of north London so often the chosen home of Britain’s liberal cultural life? There are clues in the artistic circles and families such as the Freuds and the Huxleys, which the exhibition references, and today’s cultural elites from both film and television.”
Hampstead’s Village People runs from March 1 until June 29 at the National Trust’s Fenton House. www.nationaltrust.org.uk, 020 7435 3471.
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