Sir Portrait: 30 Portraits of Roy Strong - Hardcover

‘This magnificently potty book takes us through 30 version of Roy done after celebrated portraits, or in the manner of various schools. The book is a tease. As with everything Sir Roy does, there is more than meets the mirthful eye. Look at and read this book. You’ll have a camp old time of it, but you’ll learn more than you thought you might.’

How does the former Director of the nation's greatest collection of portraits celebrate his 80th birthday?  The distinguished photographer John Swannell and Roy Strong have devised a series of thirty portraits that transport Roy through time, inventing and reinventing him as an array of historical characters.

With a sharp eye for period style and dress, and flashes of a tongue-in-cheek wit, Roy and John spent five years on a project in which he takes on the characters of Henry VIII, Toulouse Lautrec, Rasputin, President Lincoln and many more. The results, together with Roy's diary relating the stories behind the sittings, make a remarkable photographic essay of a man rightly dubbed 'Sir Portrait'.

Sir Portrait is an enchanting book, a work of playful connoisseurship, and a celebration of a life in portraits.