National Portrait Gallery & Audrey Green, London.
Above: National Portrait Gallery and Audrey Green Cafe, Trafalgar Square, London, June 2023 — photograph by Alan McFetridge 2023.
The National Portrait Gallery has reopened to the public after undergoing a £35 million renovation that lasted for three years. Among the new features are the Audrey Green café and Larry's bar, both operated by the Daisy Green Collection. As part of the reopening, East London Superlab remastered over 90 photographs from the NPG archive, which are now permanently displayed on two gallery floors as fine art prints.
Our role was to create museum-quality archival prints for the interior so that visitors can enjoy a seamless transition of photographic presentation from the gallery to the cafe and bar. The cafe and bar are themed around the lives of Audrey Hepburn and Laurence Olivier, and their interiors are a combination of high ceilings and intimate lower-ground vaults. The National Portrait Gallery curators worked closely with Daisy Green’s creative team to showcase the lives of people and places connected to the area and stage.
Above: Audrey Green Cafe, left to right: Margot Fonteyn by Angus McBean (1951) remastered to 1293mm x 1092mm, Audrey Hepburn by Bassano Ltd. (1950) remastered to 1724mm x 1373mm, Marie Rambert by Lord Snowdon (1976) remastered to 1395mm x 1000mm. All prints are archival ink on baryta-coated 100% cotton paper —photograph by Alan McFetridge 2023.
We initially consulted with artist Justin Hibbs from Daisy Green, who blends his artistic practice into the design of Daisy Green Collection's award-winning cafes and bars across London. Working directly with other artists, he peppers contemporary art into the spaces, contributing to their design success. By late April, we had successfully navigated the complexity of working with the archive’s historic prints, ensuring sensitivity to the artists’ intentions.
We then presented our vision to the Directors of Daisy Green, Prue Freeman and Tom Onions, and NPG curators Sabina Jaskot-Gill, Clare Freestone, and Anna Starling on how to remaster the prints and make them significantly larger. The NPG refurbishment was a tremendous success for the arts and public access.
To celebrate our involvement, we will release a series of blog posts, a website showcase, and interviews this autumn. Sign up for our newsletter or email us with details of your next exhibition, and we will be happy to help take care of it. The next blog will discuss the challenges of remastering to different scales.
Ngā mihi mahana,
Alan
Above: Audrey Green interior with George Harrison in Miami by Sir Paul McCartney (1964) printed to 2400mm x 3600mm — photograph by Alan McFetridge 2023.
National Portrait Gallery’s Audrey Green Entrance: Audrey Hepburn by Cecil Beaton (1963) remastered to 1628mm x 1450mm — photograph by Alan McFetridge 2023.