LONDON – The National Portrait Gallery has acquired an unpublished photograph of the British conductor Sir Simon Rattle. Rory Coonan took the portrait in 1982 on film, using a 150-year-old plate camera.
The acquisition is announced to mark Sir Simon’s 60th birthday, Monday, Jan. 19, and ahead of his concerts in London with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, of which Liverpool-born Rattle is principal conductor.
Coonan shot the photograph when Rattle was 27 years old, two years after he was appointed principal conductor and artistic adviser of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1980-1998). He is shown in Craxton Studios, London, a rehearsal space for musicians designed as an artist’s studio in 1901.
In 1945 the house was bought by Harold Craxton, pianist and teacher at the Royal Academy of Music, who taught there and accompanied some of the finest musicians of the day. Their six children included oboist Janet Craxton and painter John Craxton RA.
Rattle was born in Liverpool in 1955 and studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He was appointed principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic in 2002. He was knighted in 1994 and received the Order of Merit in 2014, an award in the personal gift of Queen Elizabeth.
Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra perform at London’s Barbican Hall on Feb. 10-12 and Royal Festival Hall, South Bank Centre (Feb. 14-15). A program of BBC broadcasts in celebration of his birthday began Monday on BBC Radio 3.
Coonan was educated at Oxford University (1973-76) and the painting school of the Royal College of Art (1978-80). He held various posts at the Arts Council of Great Britain, including Head of Architecture. In 1994-7 he created the innovation body NESTA; established the National Lottery Design Panel (1992-96). He was a member of the Franco-British Council and was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2000. His publications include Atget (Serpentine Gallery, 1984); Henri Cartier-Bresson: “The Man who Shook the World”, “The Times” (1986); Barcelona (photograph, Hayward Gallery, 1985), Rodin (Hayward Gallery, 1986) The Burghers of Calais; American Painting (1982). He is author of ‘Culture’ in the forthcoming History of the Coalition Government (Cambridge University Press, 2015), edited by Sir Anthony Seldon.
The newly acquired photograph by Rory Coonan joins six other photographs of Sir Simon Rattle in the National Portrait Gallery collection by Sheila Rock, Tom Zimberoff, Anne-Katrin Purkiss and three by Trevor Leighton.
